Participation in CEN Standards Drafting

CEN is a pan-European organisation of National Standards Bodies which is mandated by the EU to draft standards in support of the Machinery Directive, among other directives. The British Standards Institution (BSI) has an agreement with CEN that it is ‘business as usual’ for CEN standards at present.

Machinery Safety After Transition Period

The end of the Transition Period has brought about changes in the requirements for machinery safety in the UK. The rules have changed and there are now some differences in the requirements between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Prior to 31 December 2020, all construction machinery placed on the UK market had to meet the essential safety requirements (ESRs) of the EU Machinery Directive. That requirement was passed into UK law by the Supply of Machinery (Safety) Regulations 2008 (SM(S)R). The regulations contained the ESRs which were a direct transposition of those of the Directive.

One way of satisfying the regulations was to demonstrate conformity with the relevant CEN standard. Conformity could be declared by the manufacturer, signified by attaching the CE mark to a machine, then maintaining documentation to support that self-declaration of conformity.

As from 1 January 2021, the legal requirement in the UK is still to meet requirements of the Supply of Machinery (Safety) Regulations. But instead of meeting the ESRs of the Directive, the requirement will be to meet the ESRs of SM(S)R. These have simply been amended to require that machinery meets the ‘Designated UK standard’ and not the European standard.

Machinery meeting the designated standard will have a new mark attached to it: the UKCA (UK Conformity Assessed) mark. Machinery placed on the market in Northern Ireland will either have a UKNI mark or a CE mark, but the technical requirements for machinery safety will be the same as in Britain.

Transitional arrangements for 2021 covering machines CE marked on the market but not yet sold are at Reference 1 below.

As from 1st January 2021, the Designated UK standards will be the same in substance and with the same reference number as EN standards used in the EU. However, they will use the prefix ‘BS’ to indicate that they are standards published by BSi as the UK’s national standards body.

Formal designation will be undertaken by the Office for Product Safety and Standards which is part of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.

The initial list of designated standards applicable to construction machinery was published in “Notice Of Publication 0015/21 of 1 January 2021” which lists designated standards in support of SM(S)R (See Reference 2 below).

British Standards may eventually deviate from European Standards on technical points, however there are no proposals for deviation from EN 16191 or EN 12110 at present. Machinery for sale in Northern Ireland must continue to meet EN requirements. For detail on changes in wording to BS ENs, such as in the Foreword, see Reference 3 below.

There is currently a proposal within the EU to amend the Machinery Directive to take account of developments in machinery safety, particularly with regard to automation and remote control. Once the amended directive has been adopted, all European standards will have to be revised to take account of these changes. It will be interesting to see whether or not the UK follows European requirements. Given the considerable HSE input to the Machinery Directive over four decades, it is unlikely that changes in the directive would not be incorporated into UK law. These changes in the directive are likely to come about within the next five years. All construction machinery currently CE marked and in use is unaffected.

There is a consequential alteration in the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations (PUWER) as these regulations depend on the Supply of Machinery (Safety) Regulations. Hence any change in the latter regulations also affects PUWER.

References

1 https://www.gov.uk/guidance/using-the-ukca-mark-from-1- january-2021 and https://www.hse.gov.uk/brexit/regulatingequipment. htm and at https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/ government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/ file/936090/Guide-to-machinery-regulations-2008.pdf for Gt Britain with a separate document for NI.

2 https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/ system/uploads/attachment_data/file/942130/ds-0015-21- machinery-notice.pdf.

3 https://www.bsigroup.com/en-GB/about-bsi/uk-nationalstandards- body/standards-and-eu-exit/ .