Construction Products Testing Framework

The Office for Product Safety and Standards (OPSS), part of the department for Business Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), was created in January 2018 to deliver consumer protection and to support business confidence, productivity, and growth. We regulate a wide range of products with a focus on their safety and integrity. We work with local, national, and international regulators, with consumer representatives and with businesses to deliver effective protections and to support compliance.

Our mission is to be a trusted product regulator for the UK. This means protecting people and places, enabling business to thrive and empowering consumers to make good choices. We will be a leader of good regulatory practice and a champion of local regulation.

OPSS is:

• the national regulator for all consumer products, except for vehicles, medicines, and food.
• the national regulator for legal metrology, ensuring weighing and measuring instruments are accurate and reliable.

Suppliers are strongly encouraged to read the text at the following link to gain a full understanding of the role of the enforcement services with Government:

www.gov.uk/guidance/national-re… ↗

As the national regulator for Construction Products (CPR) OPSS will often be required to test products available on the market to ensure that manufacturers are accurate in their marketing materials and that products are, above all else, safe.

Previously, the approach of OPSS was to run a multitude of separate testing contract tenders throughout the year. However, this approach has proven to be very inefficient, time consuming and expensive.

Therefore, the new approach will be to create a Construction Products Testing Framework. The framework will be divided up into multiple "lots", each covering a different aspect of Construction Product testing. Suppliers will be asked to submit applications to gain access to the framework based on their expertise, testing remit and location. If successful, the supplier will then be listed under the applicable lots in the framework.

Once on the framework, suppliers will be contracted on a call-off contract basis when testing is required. Specific details of the requirement including number of samples, testing standards, evidential handling requirements, timescales etc. will be provided closer to the time.

We are hosting a supplier engagement event where we will provide more information about this opportunity and what we expect to see from suppliers. It will also serve as an opportunity for suppliers to gain a better understanding of the new direction OPSS will be taking testing contracts in the future.