Let us know how the UKCA mark has, and will, impact your business so that we can better represent your concerns to the approval bodies and the Government.

Our survey to highlight the impact and extent of the UKCA mark

The fire industry has expressed concern over the requirements for UKCA marking under the CPR and other relevant EU directives and regulations especially considering the short time scale for implementation. So far, the response from the Government has been dismissive as they see the required effort to transition as low. However, this view is not held by many of our members and it is felt that the government is unaware of the specific challenges posed in the fire protection field.

We are launching a short survey to show the Government the true impact of UKCA that shines a light on how many products need to be re-certified and how many have already been done. It is vitally important that the Government understands the impact that changing to the UKCA regime will have not only on businesses from the fire industry whose task it is to keep buildings safe; but also, for the thousands of business owners that rely on their buildings being compliant so that they can remain open.

 

Background Information:

What is UKCA?

The UKCA (UK Conformity Assessed) marking is a new UK product marking that is used for goods being placed on the market in Great Britain (England, Wales and Scotland). It covers most goods which previously required the CE marking.

It is important for end-users/consumers to know that the UKCA is not required until 1 January 2022 and until then CE marked products are still able to used in the fire industry. Products that are bought before 1 January 2022 will be not be required to be retrospectively marked as UKCA for more information see here.

Our primary concerns are that:

  • cost our industry sectors in the region of £20m for product re-certification plus an estimated timeline of over 36 months to realistically carry out the process.
  • dual product certification will cause major disruption to companies that make/sell products across the UK, EU and global markets, which, subject to any unknown divergence, will add significant costs to the process.
  • This process does not add any value or quality to the product at a time when businesses are already stretched with Brexit and Covid-19.

What we plan to do:

We are surveying our members and the wider industry to map out the impacts of the UKCA mark, this will allow us to better represent the fire industry’s concerns on the UKCA mark to the relevant approval bodies and the Government. All data received will be treated with the strictest confidence and individual results will not be shared with anyone.