Product Safety Consultation

Last week, the Department for Business and Trade launched a product safety consultation, in a bid to reform the current regulatory framework for product safety. The consultation, open until 24th October, is being announced as part of the Government’s Smarter Regulation Programme.

This news came shortly after the announcement that the UKCA marking deadline was to be extended by a further two years

While we commend a review into the current framework around standards, we would question whether it is possible to make such reforms, when resources such as Trading Standards and Third-Party Test Houses are already overstretched. Derogation and e-labelling reforms are all well and good, so long as there are robust policies and organisations in place to ensure these are not exploited. Take for example the problems of cyber security we all encounter day by day with spurious websites and hacking, let alone the lies told as supposed facts.

Dodgy products are a scourge to our collective safety, and we would like greater scrutiny of any product coming in from offshore, not less. In all honesty we must expect unscrupulous manufacturers and importers to take every advantage, and to exploit every vulnerability and loop- hole they can. Being offshore is a great way to hide things, especially if an e-certificate says it is compliant. The earlier point about cyber security should ring alarm bells.

Back to the marking of products. It would be ideal if all territories could come on board with this proposal within a unified framework agreement. The proposal does not mention the problems of products carrying multiple territory compliance markings and how to accommodate different languages.

The consultation document includes several questions, and it urges us to respond to these via the online survey. This is not something you can do during a quick break. It is a big survey to do correctly, and the submission of proof will put many people off. Rather than kick the issues of deadlines down the road and tie business up in consultations they don’t have time to deal with, might we offer two suggestions for HM Gov to think about.

  • Get to grips with UKCA and get on with it or bin it within the term of this parliament because the UK needs to know one way or the other and not watch the can being kicked down the road to land in someone else’s back yard to deal with.
  • Level the playing field for UK businesses who are making good products by getting tough on those who evade their compliance responsibility.

These suggestions will clarify the situation post Brexit and give the UK a robust mechanism to deter products coming onto the market that have no right to be there.

Let’s create something great together

Sharing

FacebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmailFacebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmail

UKCA – Countdown to compliance

The UKCA mark applies to most goods that previously required a CE mark. In April last year, our sister company Hillside Product Design published an article about the new UKCA mark which came into effect on 1st January 2021. According to Government requirements, many businesses would still be able to use the CE marking until 1st January 2022 to allow them time to adjust to the new UKCA.

At the start of 2022 the UKCA marking must be present at least as a label affixed to the product or an accompanying document. From 1st Jan 2023 UKCA marking must comply with specific regulations that apply to the product.

This all sounds pretty straightforward; you would think, however concerningly, there appears to be a lack of understanding, or even knowledge of this requirement with many of the UK-based manufacturers we are speaking to. This suggests that come next year this is potentially going to be a problem for any who did not comply.

The new UKCA is a legal compliance, therefore markings must be appropriately displayed with newly manufactured products by the start of next year. With a deadline of less than 8 months away this could easily catch many manufacturers on their back foot.

UKCA marks must conform to certain size requirements. This means manufacturers will need to find space to integrate the new UKCA mark. As this is a compliance requirement, manufacturers have no choice but to do this and yet potentially this is going to cost a lot of money and, even more worryingly, a lot of time and inconvenience to implement.

There is frustration at this new legislation with some questioning whether the new UKCA is really necessary. Our position is that this is a regulation and will therefore need to be adhered to. Our advice is to address this early on and make adjustments that meet requirements.

Sharing

FacebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmailFacebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmail