OPINION: Retail crime is still a clear and present threat – Pete Cheema, chief executive, SGF

We are now one year on since the ground-breaking Protection of Workers Act came into effect in August 2021, which makes it an offence to assault, threaten, obstruct or hinder a retail worker while they are carrying out their role.

This was a major step forward, and involved hard work and collective effort being put into having this legislation in place.

What have we learned so far? The statistics that were published by the British Retail Consortium and compiled by Scottish Business Resilience Centre earlier this year covered the first six months of the legislation being live and showed that 1,665 reports were made under the act.