Health and Safety
Executive / Commission
Work Equipment
Information current as of 9 February 1999
1. Conformity assessment (CA) is the collective term used for a number of techniques (testing, inspection and certification) used to determine if a product, system, process (including design) or a person's competence etc. meets a defined specification.
2. The key factor is conformity with the given specification - this is often a standard issued by a recognised standards body. But it could equally be set out as a legislative requirement or be a specification developed within an industrial sector. In practice the standards used for CA purposes are usually those developed by recognised standards bodies at national, European or international levels (e.g. BSI, CEN, ISO, IEC).
Development of CA
3. CA has arisen from the need of manufacturers, users and regulators to be sure that products, processes, services, systems and increasingly personnel meet a specified requirement or standard, e.g. that a product will meet durability requirements or a person is competent to carry out a specific task. (They may also need to have this confirmed over time by periodic re-examination.) The prime stimulus to the development of CA has been the market - to promote customer confidence and so develop trade.
4. The growth in European and world trade, and the associated growth in the 'quality movement' over the last quarter century led to increasing demands for systems that can confirm reliably the specific qualities of products, systems or the competence of people. More recently the drive to the Single Market within the EU has led to the development of common CA techniques in European product directives and the development of European standards against which conformity can be assessed.
5. A core element of the legislation involved (the "New Approach Directives" made under Article 100a of the Treaty of Rome) is assessment of products against agreed and recognised standards or safety requirements with the level of verification of conformity required (i.e. manufacturer's declaration of conformity or varying degrees of independent third party testing and certification or use of an approved and monitored quality system) being determined by the level of risk involved. A wide range of safety-related products is now covered by standards being developed at European level, many of which support the UK regulations implementing the New Approach Directives. HSC has welcomed this development as a major step forward in seeking to ensure that only products safe for use at work are placed on the market.
United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS)
6. UKAS operates under a Memorandum of Understanding with the Department of Trade and Industry. This recognises UKAS as the sole national body for the assessment and accreditation of conformity assessment bodies whose activities include sampling, testing, calibration, inspection or certification, including the certification of products, personnel or systems. Government policy is to encourage the use of UKAS. UKAS has been established as a non-profit distributing company.
Back to Policy Statement on Conformity Assessment
Accreditation
Procedure by which an authoritative body gives formal recognition that a
body or person is competent to carry out specific tasks. (EN 45020:1998
Standardisation and related activities - general vocabulary)
Approval
Confirmation by an official authority that something meets a particular
legislative requirement. Approval is often of a product itself, but can
also be of other things, for example a standard or a manufacturing process.
Approval usually implies approval for specific use (based on the HSC Policy
Statement on Approval or Certification of Plant or Articles for Use at Work
1984)
Certification
Procedure by which a third party gives written assurance that a product,
process or service conforms to specified requirements.
(EN 45020:1998 Standardisation and related activities - general vocabulary)
Conformity
Fulfilment by a product, process or service of specified requirements.
(EN 45020:1998 Standardisation and related activities - general vocabulary)
Inspection
Examination of a product design, product, service, process or plant, and
determination of their conformity with specific requirements or, on the
basis of professional judgement, general requirements.
(EN 45004:1998 - General criteria for the operation of various types of bodies performing inspection)
Standard
A Standard is:
"a document established by consensus and approved by a recognised body,
that provides, for common and repeated use, rules, guidelines or characteristics
for activities or their results, aimed at the achievement of the optimum
degree of order in a given context."
(ISO/IEC Guide 2 -Standardisation and related activities - general vocabulary)
Test
Technical operation that consists of the determination of one or more characteristics
of a given product, process or service according to a specified procedure.
(EN45020:1998 Standardisation and related activities - general vocabulary)
Testing
Act of carrying out one or more tests
(EN45020:1998 Standardisation and related activities - general vocabulary)
Updated on the HSE website on 5 April 2002