20/12/2018
2018 has been an extraordinary and successful year for BSI in its role as the UK national standards body. Recognition of the value of standards amongst our stakeholders has never been higher. The breadth of our technical work grows year on year. Our influence within the leading international standards organizations continues to build and we have strengthened our bilateral relations with countries around the world through formal agreements and close cooperation.
A major highlight of the year was securing the UK position in the European standards system post Brexit in a plan agreed by the CEN and CENELEC members in November. UK membership will continue as today while changes to their membership rules are agreed and an independent assessment of BSI’s performance as a member is undertaken in 2020. Agreeing a way forward has been a top priority for the BSI standards policy team working with industry, consumer and government stakeholders and other national standards bodies across Europe. With this decision in place, our expert committees and hundreds of thousands of organizations using standards across the UK will have some certainty in their planning for a post-Brexit future, at least in this aspect of their activity.
Growing public and parliamentary interest in innovative technologies has brought BSI into the spotlight as never before. New BSI committees have been formed to cover emerging areas of work, such as the management of Big Data and Artificial Intelligence. Interest in the development of standards that will support the ethical aspects of products and services, particularly digital services, is spreading. As the UK member of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), we were pleased to secure leadership of the new ISO committee on sustainable finance, a subject that also embraces green finance.
One of the areas that we have not progressed as quickly as we would like is in an increased diversity of stakeholder representation and of committee membership. BSI has over 12,000 committee members but recruitment remains one of our biggest challenges. We must work to grow our committees and encourage an even broader range of experts to participate. Anyone can apply to join our committees and organizations are particularly encouraged to nominate experts to represent their sector.
There has been a big expansion in BSI’s Consumer and Public Interest Network and we nearly doubled the number of consumer representatives in our committees, building and refreshing relations with major consumer organizations. This year we also secured new arrangements to help Trading Standards Officers access the standards that they need to support their vital work in market surveillance.
In April the Prime Minister announced the launch of the new Commonwealth Standards Network (CSN) at the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in London. Over 30 countries have joined the network to date, which is also managing three technical assistance projects in different parts of the world funded by the Department for International Development. UK will lead the CSN for the first two years but in time, the CSN will be taken forward by the members to become a valued channel for information exchange on standardization and the role of international standards in supporting economic growth, trade and sustainability.
As we look forward to 2019, I hope that all our stakeholders, whether from industry, government, consumer or other organizations, will see our work in shaping and maintaining international, European and national standards as one point of stability on which they can rely. British Standards, 84% of which are international and European, will continue to provide their users with the certainty they need to deliver their aspirations next year and beyond.
Scott Steedman
