The European Commission has recast and reissued three further Regulations: –
- Regulation (EU) 2016/425: Personal Protective Equipment (replaces Directive 89/686/EEC)
- Regulation (EU) 2016/426: Appliances Burning Gaseous Fuels (replaces Directive 2009/142/EC)
- Regulation (EU) 2016/424: Cableways (replaces Directive 2000/9/EC)
All three Regulations will come into effect on 21st April 2018, at which point the previous Directives will be repealed.
Transition Arrangements
The overall arrangements for Notified Bodies wishing to transition to one of these new Regulations are summarised below. These arrangements take account of the experience gained from previous alignment package transitions and are aimed at ensuring sufficient time is available for all activities to take place.
In accordance with the above information, the absolute deadline for existing Notified Bodies to be re-notified in NANDO for one of these new Regulations is 21st April 2018. To ensure that this deadline can be achieved the Competent Authority needs to be allowed sufficient time to complete its activities in addition to that required by UKAS. Therefore the transition assessments undertaken by UKAS will need to be completed by 31st December 2017.
In order to meet the December 2017 deadline, all assessments of Notified Bodies for PPE and Gas Appliances will start to include the requirements of the new Regulations alongside the existing Directives from 1st October 2016. To initiate the process, bodies looking to be notified for the new PPE & Gas Appliances Regulations will be required to submit the appropriate application form relating to the type of assessment activity provided (e.g. AC1 for certification or AC2 for Inspection). Further information will be provided in due course. Although there are no current UK Notified Bodies for the Cableways Directive applications from interested bodies will be accepted.
Where issues are identified during the transition assessment that specifically relate to the new Regulations they will be raised as Mandatory Findings but will not affect the existing appointment to the current Directives. Findings affecting the current Directives will be raised and dealt with in the normal way.
In the meantime, affected Notified Bodies should ensure that they review and understand the requirements of the new Regulation relevant to them and start to implement any necessary changes in readiness for the implementation date.
It is important to note that conformity assessment bodies that do not achieve notified status for the new Regulations by the deadline of 21 April 2018 will lose affected notified body status from this date.
Key Dates
21st April 21 2016: Publication of the new Regulations
1st October 2016: Commencement of UKAS assessments against the new requirements
31st December 2017: All transition assessments completed
21st April 2018: Deadline for notification – previous Directives repealed
UKAS Contacts
If you have any queries regarding the content of this bulletin then please contact either:
- Kevin Belson – UKAS Technical Manager: [email protected]
- Barry Middleton – UKAS Technical Focus Person for PPE: [email protected]
- Glyn Poiner – UKAS Technical Focus Person for Gas Appliances: [email protected]