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Implementation of EU Regulation 765/08 on accreditation and Market Surveillance in the United Kingdom

On 9 July 2008 the EU Parliament and the Council of the European Union adopted the EU Regulation 765/08 on Accreditation and Market Surveillance.

With effect from 1 January 2010, the EU Regulation will for the first time establish a legal framework for the provision of accreditation services across Europe. The Regulation lays down rules on the organisation and operation of accreditation of conformity assessment bodies in both the voluntary and regulated sectors.

While the requirements of the Regulation largely mirror the accreditation system currently in force in the UK there are some important changes from 1 January 2010. DIUS therefore welcomes the views of stakeholders on the accreditation aspects of the EU Regulation, and we have distributed an information pack that identifies these changes and interprets some of the more complex provisions. This is available to download in PDF format.

DIUS held an open day on 3 December 2008 to provide an opportunity to debate the accreditation aspects of EU Regulation 765/08. The presentations are available below together with the questions raised by stakeholders. DIUS's responses to the questions were published in February 2009.

Even after the publication of the response document in February, BIS continued to receive a great deal of useful comment for which BIS is very grateful. BIS considered and reviewed in depth all this material and took it into account when deciding how best to appoint UKAS as the National Accreditation Body for the United Kingdom - following a lengthy consideration it was agreed that UKAS' formal appointment would be made via a Statutory Instrument supported by a revised Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between BIS and UKAS.

Drafts of both the Statutory Instrument and MoU were tabled at the UKAS Policy Advisory Committee on 1 October 2009 as well as being circulated to the BIS conformity assessment consultation group (ConCAss). While the main interest in these documents is contained within these two groups they were open for comment to the public in general, and a copy was posted below. BIS' response to the comments received was posted below on 25 November 2009.

Open day presentations - 3 December 2008

Responses to stakeholder questions – February 2009

Read DIUS’ responses here (PDF, 310 Kb)