Post-Brexit guide to product marking published

The Construction Leadership Council has published a new guide to the marking of construction projects after the Brexit transition period with the European Union expires on 31 December 2020.

From 1 January 2021 there will be three different product
marks that manufacturers, and others in the supply chain, may need to apply.
The rules governing these marks will depend on where the product is intended to
be used. The three marks are:

• The EU’s marking for product conformity (CE marking)
• The United Kingdom Conformity Assessed mark (UKCA mark)
• The United Kingdom Northern Ireland mark (UK(NI) mark), which is additional to the CE marking in some instances.

Depending on the regulations of each jurisdiction, a
manufacturer may be required to use the services of a conformity assessment
body to show their product meets the required criteria.

The guide aims to help businesses plan for the changes by
presenting several scenarios that explains which legislation will apply to
products, what marking is needed and which conformity assessment body they may
need to assess a product’s compliance before placing it on the relevant market.

Peter Caplehorn, chief executive of the Construction
Products Association (CPA) and chair of the Standards and Alignment Workstream
of the CLC’s Brexit working group, said: “We hope the guidance is of help to
clarify the situation with regard to marking of products, especially as we transition
from one system to another, this is complex, and we have opted to use a
tabulated format to explain the options.

“Especially with the options for Northern Ireland we have
distilled the guidance down to the basics for ease of understanding. We also recognise
that there are several areas still be worked on across this whole topic and
some revision may be necessary in coming months.

“The group are also working on a number of further documents
around information that supports the marks including testing, standards,
certification processes, and organisations providing these or supporting
manufacturers when placing products on the market. These will be made available
in the forthcoming weeks.”

The guidance is the fourth publication in a suite of business readiness advice that the group intends to publish ahead of 31 December 2020.

The guide is available here.