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[March 2005]
Construction Products Association Calls For Review of BSI
The Construction Products Association (London, England) has written to Patricia Hewitt, Secretary of State for Trade & Industry in the British Government, asking her to instigate a review of the role and structure of BSI (British Standards Institution) to ensure that it is more supportive of the UK industry in the highly competitive global markets in which industry operates.
In his letter, CPA President Roy Harrison said: "Companies in our industry buy considerable numbers of standards and their staff devote many hours to helping BSI develop these standards. We see BSI as a partner in promoting the interests of UK plc but are becoming increasingly disappointed in the part they are playing in this partnership".
Referring to the aggressive marketing by American standards setting bodies to encourage countries to adopt American rather than British standards, Roy Harrison continued: "American standards are often freely available and, on occasions, adoption of American standards has been a condition of certain countries receiving aid. Once designs are developed to American standards, they provide an immediate advantage to those manufacturing to these standards and present a potential barrier to many UK companies.
"At the same time, BSI is charging our industry significantly more for copies of the new harmonised European standards than companies in other countries, in some cases paying more than double the price that French and German companies have to pay and eleven times the price in countries such as Estonia, where standards are published in English."
The CPA has pointed out that the problem lies in the different objectives for the two parts of BSI - standards writing and the commercial area of testing and management operations systems, the latter accounting for some 90% of BSI business - and has suggested that the Government looks at the Australian model, where the commercial operation was sold as a separate concern with the money raised ring-fenced to support a separate standards writing and marketing operation.
ENDS