Accreditation is left remotely – Newspaper Kommersant No. 21 (7466) dated 02/06/2023

The Ministry of Economy proposes to extend until the end of 2023 the ability to remotely evaluate certification bodies and testing laboratories responsible for issuing documents on the safety of goods. Remote accreditation, adopted as a counter-sanction support measure, reduces the time for permitting procedures and their cost for business, the department explains. It is also planned to extend the notification procedure for inclusion in the relevant register of expert auditors conducting product safety assessments for a year.

The Ministry of Economy has prepared a draft government decree on the extension for 2023 of the possibility to remotely, using video conferencing, evaluate applicants applying for accreditation in the national accreditation system or wishing to confirm their competencies. “This format allows us to reduce both the time of permitting procedures and their cost for business,” the agency explained.

Recall that Rosakkreditatsiya accredits and controls certification bodies, as well as testing laboratories responsible for issuing documents on the safety of goods. The service began to use remote methods when conducting inspections and providing services back in 2020. The head of the Federal Accreditation Agency, Nazariy Skrypnik, explained earlier that this made it possible to reduce the number of inspections by 60%.

By a government decree dated March 12, 2022, norms were introduced for 12 months on the automatic extension of the validity of licenses and other types of permits, as well as on their simplified receipt and renewal. This “indulgence” was introduced by the White House as an anti-sanction measure to reduce the burden on business and to reduce the costs associated with the passage of licensing procedures.

Rosaccreditation reported to Kommersant that, according to the forecast of the service, in 2023, about 2.5 thousand applicants will apply for a public service for scheduled confirmation of competence or for accreditation. “The average savings on one service for business will be 60 thousand rubles, we estimate the total savings at about 150 million rubles,” the service said.

The draft resolution also proposes to extend for a year the notification procedure for including expert auditors (these specialists carry out all stages of product safety assessment) in the relevant unified state register. The amendments allow, until March 1, 2024, to include them in the register without a qualifying exam and attestation, an application will be enough. At the same time, expert auditors included in the register will have to pass certification within three years.

Recall that, in general, the introduction of a risk-based approach in confirming the competencies of accredited persons and transferring their interaction with the service to a remote format was aimed at creating a comfortable environment for conscientious market players. In 2018, the Ministry of Economy, together with the Federal Accreditation Service, began to fight the gray market in this area and work to increase consumer and business confidence in the results of product testing. The departments have tightened control over certification bodies and laboratories, increased the requirements for their admission to the market and developed mechanisms for revoking certificates and declarations of conformity that were issued by unscrupulous centers (for more details, see Kommersant of November 27 and October 15, 2020) .

Venera Petrova