Hot Spot: UK Government Publication of Designated Standards Listings

What is it? 

The UK Government has now published a list of what will be known as Designated Standards. These documents may be used to provide a presumption of conformity with UK regulations such as the Pressure Equipment Regulations (PER), against the requirements of the new UKCA conformity assessment mark. These Designated Standards may be used in the same way as Harmonised Standards are currently used to give a presumption of conformity with the relevant European Directives such as the PED and ATEX. The list of Designated Standards can be found by following Designated standards - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) and selecting the applicable directive at the bottom of the page. Currently the list of Designated Standards is the same as the list of European Harmonised Standards.

The published list of Designated Standards is a list of EN standards and does not contain only BS published documents as we had been led to believe. Because this appeared to be a change in previously stated policy, the BVAA has requested and received confirmation from UK Government that the absence of BS published standards from the lists is correct. The reason given by UK Government for this change is that the CEN and CENELEC standards organisations are independent from the EU Government, as demonstrated by the fact that BSI will continue to be a member and contribute to the development of new EN standards after Brexit.

Why is it Important? 

The UKCA marking scheme will come into force from 1-1-2021 and be compulsory for the market in Great Britain by 1-1-2022. The UK government has recently changed the requirements in order to demonstrate compliance with UKCA regulations. The valve industry had previously been advised that it would be required to refer to British Standards Institute (BS) nationally published standards when demonstrating conformance with UK regulations. The use of EN standard references would not be acceptable.

We have now been informed that this is not the case, there is no need to replace all EN standard references, on certificates of conformity, with their BS equivalents that are used to declare UKCA compliance. Either BS or BS EN prefixed standard references  may be used on UKCA documents allowing members to retain commonality with their CE declarations of conformity.

This change of requirements is a clear reminder that the rules surrounding Brexit are still evolving. BVAA members are advised to continue to regularly review the updates from the UK Government and the BVAA to ensure that they remain informed of the latest requirements affecting their business.

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Hot Spots are intended to alert members and provide a brief overview of new standards, activities or procedures that are being introduced in the industry. If there is key information missing that would be helpful, please let us know so that we can improve our future service.

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