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Introduction
The Personal Protective Equipment (EC Directive) Regulations
1992 ("the Principal Regulations") came into force
on 1 January 1993 and have been amended on three separate occasions.
The Principal Regulations, as currently drafted, do not give
Trading Standards Departments powers of prosecution under section
12 of the Consumer Protection Act 1987. At the time these were
made, such powers were not considered to be appropriate. Trading
Standards Officers at present have powers to issue notices to
warn, prohibition notices, suspension notices and (in most serious
cases) forfeiture of goods. The Trading Standards Departments
consider that these powers may be unduly draconian. An additional
power to prosecute will provide a less draconian route than forfeiture
of PPE leading to its destruction.
The purpose of this amendment
is to provide additional power of prosecution to the Trading
Standards Departments which will provide a less draconian route
than the forfeiture of products leading to their destruction.
The amendment also aims to consolidate the Principal Regulations
with the three existing amendments and the new enforcement power
in new Regulations (The Personal Protective Equipment Regulations
2002) in order to provide all parties with one document.
 Impact on businesses
The proposed Consolidation
does not impose additional costs to legitimate businesses, alter
the scope or change the essential requirements of the Principal
Regulations in any respect. Therefore, a Regulatory Impact Assessment
was not considered necessary on this occasion.
Consultation
A two-month consultation exercise
was completed on 15 February 2001. We informed a total of more
than 400 organisations which included industry, relevant trade
associations, LACOTS and the Trading Standards Departments, other
Government bodies and notified bodies. The leading trade association
on personal protective equipment (PPE), British Safety Industry
Federation (BSIF), co-ordinated the responses from industry.
About 20 responses were received. While most of the organisations
were supportive of the amendment, however, some organisations
made comments which could not be covered by this amendment as
they related to the Personal Protective Equipment Directive which
would require a review at the Commission level. The proposed
consolidation amendment did not aim to alter the scope of essential
requirements of the Principal Regulations.
However, the significant comments
received which affected the amendment were from LACOTS, which
co-ordinated responses from the Trading Standards Departments.
Their main observation was that the offence of 'supply' (of unsafe
PPE) should be extended to the distributors and the retailers.
The industry proposed that the offences should be included on
the face of the Regulations.
Re-consultation
In order to address these comments,
some amendments were made to the consulted draft of the Regulations,
which placed a general duty relating to supply of safe PPE to
all persons including the retailers and suppliers, as well as
some other minor changes were made such as inclusion of offences
on the face of the Regulations. As these changes extended the
scope of the consulted draft, they were consulted again for a
short period which ended on 9 November 2001.
The results of the re-consultation
exercise were that the parties concerned were generally supportive
of the introduction of offences and penalties in the second consulted
draft and there were no negative comments. However, there were
a couple of comments received from LACOTS concerning definitions
to be made more clearer. These were considered and minor changes
were made to provide clarity to definitions in the Regulations,
in particular, to the definition of 'safe'.
The Department is grateful
for the comments received and it is likely that Regulations will
enter into force by end of March 2002.
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