OPSS recently facilitated a productive virtual forum recently as they prepare to integrate their role as the new National Regulator for Construction Products into core business operations from early next year being accountable to Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC).
This will involve OPSS working very closely with the new Building Safety Regulator as well as other regulators to create what will be a complete culture shift throughout the industry.
Market surveillance and enforcement of construction products has been pretty much unregulated as other areas take priority within trading standards services due to a severe lack of resources year upon year within the local authority pot.
What we will be seeing in the not-too-distant future is a regulator no doubt wanting to make an impact and having the power to remove any product from the market that presents itself as a significant risk. Within their armoury will be the power to prosecute any business who fail to follow the rules which includes custodial sentencing.
The majority of businesses run law abiding operations never wishing to find themselves on the wrong side of the law but often the day to day job and its immediacies get in the way.
Routing through.gov.uk pages only then to find broad overviews can feel both frustrating as well as extremely overwhelming.
Now has to be the time for the industry to get its head around what’s coming down the pipeline by scrutinising every facet of their business to prepare…and rightly so in my opinion after the devastating events of Grenfell Tower in 2017.
I was the lead BEIS product safety investigator at the time working with the Met police, Chief Scientific Advisor and Whirlpool, I know only too well how this step is long overdue. Whilst my work circulated around the fridge freezer, what obviously also unfolded was a catalogue of failures including a faulty smoke-control system and those much-published cladding panels with a polyethylene core that created the inferno that ensued.
Attendees from sector specific trade associations, manufacturers, importers, distributors as well as law firms fired questions at the panel ranging from how the new statutory list of safety critical products will work, how the regulation of both the marketing and supply of constructions will operate, what the levels of fines/sentencing will be for non-compliances as well as the ins and outs of risk assessments.
Interestingly even in the online space an economic operator will need to be established within the UK acting as the main point of contact for enforcement authorities.
If you need support to understand how all this will directly affect you and your business whether you want to talk risk assessments, testing, technical documentation or how to establish productive working relationships with enforcement authorities, look no further.
