Standards are used in our everyday lives to show that products are safe, suitable for a particular use or provide guidance and process, for example many products carry a CE or a UKCA mark to demonstrate their conformity to certain standards, yet access to Standards can be restricted simply by their cost which can run into £100’s, because the National bodies who draft them are part funded by selling them.
We recently covered The European Court of Justice Judgment on providing the free Harmonised standards which are used to define products where CE marking is mandated. We see this as an interesting development and may have repercussions on how Standards are managed moving forwards, in the UK and Europe.
At FIS we strive to make the key standards free to our community via the FIS Standards Portal. It is important moving forwards that we have a robust standard setting body, but the cost to access and use the standards is not prohibitive, particularly for SME’s.
This is just one of the membership benefits. If you are not currently a member and want to know more, please don’t hesitate to contact our Head of Membership Michelle Armstrong michellearmstrong@thefis.org