{"id":633348,"date":"2023-04-21T19:57:32","date_gmt":"2023-04-22T00:57:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.sellorbuyhomefast.com\/index.php\/2023\/04\/21\/independent-review-questions-new-product-safety-regime\/"},"modified":"2023-04-21T19:57:32","modified_gmt":"2023-04-22T00:57:32","slug":"independent-review-questions-new-product-safety-regime","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2023\/04\/21\/independent-review-questions-new-product-safety-regime\/","title":{"rendered":"Independent review questions new product safety regime"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

An independent review into construction product safety has questioned whether regulators will be able to effectively enforce tighter standards.<\/p>\n

The government-commissioned bombshell report also says product-certification bodies such as the Building Research Establishment (BRE) have failed to interrogate their operations following the Grenfell Tower tragedy in 2017.<\/p>\n

Commissioned in April 2021, the authors of the review \u2013 former Whitehall construction advisor Paul Morrell and legal expert Anneliese Day \u2013 were asked to identify weaknesses in construction product testing and make recommendations for improvement.<\/p>\n

The review comes after the Grenfell Tower Inquiry heard that tests run by certification bodies were \u201cmanipulated\u201d, that certification bodies viewed tests for manufacturers as a major source of income, and that misleading and incorrect safety certificates were issued to combustible products.<\/p>\n

The latest review says that the enforcement of historic construction product rules has been \u201calmost totally non-existent, so that bad actors feel they can bypass the regulations without consequence\u201d.<\/p>\n

It points out that there has not been a single prosecution under the Construction Products Regulations 2013 since they were introduced to enforce \u201cdesignated standards\u201d of certain products \u2013 equivalent to around one-third of the products on the market.<\/p>\n

Since the Grenfell tragedy, two new regulators have been formed under the Building Safety Act 2022 \u2013 a National Regulator for Construction Products that is part of the Office for Product and Safety Standards, and a Building Safety Regulator, which is part the Health and Safety Executive.<\/p>\n

However, the review raises questions over how effective the new bodies\u2019 enforcement will be.<\/p>\n

Dame Judith Hackitt\u2019s post-Grenfell review of building regulations called for the principle of a \u201cgolden thread\u201d to be established and run throughout the life of a project, which the dual regulators will need to be able to trace materials for, the new report says. But it adds that it is unclear how \u201cregulatory continuity will be established in following products from manufacture to installation and use on site, given the split of responsibilities between the two new regulators\u201d.<\/p>\n

Morrell and Day\u2019s review also says the involvement of already overstretched trading standards officers in assessing construction products raises questions about the effectiveness of the new regime.<\/p>\n

It calls for the government and industry to give \u201cfurther thought\u201d on how to enforce the Building Safety Act, \u201cif these new regulations are not to continue to suffer from the lack of enforcement that has existed to date.\u201d<\/p>\n

Elsewhere, the experts lambast the conformity assessment bodies (CABs) that certify products, saying there has been a lack of understanding of what went wrong in relation to their work and Grenfell.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith limited exceptions, CABs have not demonstrated any obvious sense of a need for change (or even critical review) in the wake of the fire at Grenfell Tower,\u201d the report says.<\/p>\n

The bodies \u2013 of which there are 53, including the BRE and the British Board of Agr\u00e9ment \u2013 should have a legal duty placed on them to be aware that they are acting in the public interest when carrying out their conformity checks, according to the reviewers.<\/p>\n

Morrell and Day also recommend that the government requires them to declare to the UK Accreditation Service \u2013 the body that approves their work \u2013 if they are providing consultancy or any other services to customers who are also using their conformity assessment services. In such cases, they would need to show how they manage conflicts of interest.<\/p>\n

The review also says CABs should be required to report manufacturers to the regulators if they appear to be \u201cshopping around\u201d for a test pass or if they misrepresent the conclusions of the assessments of their products.<\/p>\n

In a foreword to Morrell and Day\u2019s review, Dame Judith Hackitt says: \u201cWe must move from a state where: up to two-thirds of products are unregulated, there is lack of clarity around purpose of testing, the fitness for purpose of current standards is questioned and there is no enforcement to implement a process that delivers quality and confidence.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt should be self-evident to everyone that we need products which do the job they are expected to do and are marketed honestly and transparently, that CABs must be adequately resourced, independent and impartial to provide confidence, and that those who design and build buildings must choose the right products; but it is equally clear that there have been and still are serious gaps in our current system.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other recommendations in the 174-page review include extending the requirement for manufacturers to sign declarations of performance to all construction products and drawing up a joint government-industry action plan on product safety to be reported on every six months.<\/p>\n

The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities has been contacted for comment.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

Read More<\/a>
\n Ian Weinfass<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An independent review into construction product safety has questioned whether regulators will be able to effectively enforce tighter standards. The government-commissioned bombshell report also says product-certification bodies such as the Building Research Establishment (BRE) have failed to interrogate their operations following the Grenfell Tower tragedy in 2017. Commissioned in April 2021, the authors of the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":633349,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30112,661],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-633348","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-independent","8":"category-review"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633348","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=633348"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633348\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/633349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=633348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=633348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=633348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}