The great UKCA fiasco

I used to do product approvals. I did quite a few. I'm struggling to understand what's going on here.

I've no idea what the differences are between UKCE and the old CE as it's 12 years or so now since I did this but I suppose a lot will hang on how far the UK would want to move away from the statutory instruments and standards that were/are in effect for CE and why would the UK want to? Why reinvent the CE requirements wheel? If it's all in place why rewrite it? OK the EC might rewrite it but unless they do something mega stupid why would the UK want to rewrite the whole thing? Just incorporate what the EC does into UK statutory instruments (that was done) and make sure there's a BS or three to cover everything (that was done) as normal. Everything I did was covered by UK statutory instruments and BS and I don't know what's changed.

Unless the EC really does lose it and do something mega stupid and in that case their CE will only need to be followed when exporting to a market requiring it and a UKCE could be called into being for the UK or the UK could adopt whatever requirements the sane parts of the world which may recognise any EC lunacy decide to adopt.

On UK labs closing. I don't know what's being done in "labs" as I used to do everything except EMC in house. I didn't do emc because the test gear was too expensive and it seemed better to just pay the going rate of about £1k a day to buy testers in. That did prove to be the right way to do it for me/us. Anyway, I'd not want labs to close as there's an avalanche of Chinese tat arriving in the UK every single day and quite some of it will be about a million miles away from complying with anything. Either the manufacturer or the imported should be required to ensure that products are periodically tested and action should be taken when it doesn't comply with... whatever standard we adopt. As some importers will have nothing but an office or back bedroom and zero ability to test anything then I suppose that could be farmed out to labs for CE. That should happen. I've bought loads of stuff off Amazon and Evil Bay and all the usual suspects and quite a bit of it frankly shouldn't be on sale in the UK. It'd be nice if that could be stopped.

On the whole though and without reading any further, I'm baffled as to what's going on here with UKCE.

They did?  Savages.  Have they no shame?...........

CE marking and the Declaration of Conformity from the manufacturer are pretty much worthless, which is why it’s not accepted in the US and Canada. Manufacturers lie about their product conforming, don’t have the relevant technical files for review, and so many products come into the EU marked CE that clearly aren’t that everyone views it with great scepticism. A proper,independent UKSA would probably by a good thing.

No, it's not worthless. Non conforming tat can enter the market but anyone can theoretically report it. That ability is afair stated somewhere. Actually when I did this a competitor got a bit snotty about a product I was involved with but their argument was garbage and based only their opinion and with no substance to it at all. Still, even complaints with no substance need to be at least looked at and answered. In my time I did contact several other UK manufacturers directly regarding issues and all were resolved to my satisfaction. So reporting is possible and if a product is found to be non compliant there's the possibility of legal action against someone. If foreign manufacturers can't be held to account then importers should be.

UKCA could be a good thing but why reinvent it all when it all exists in the UK already and is all covered by existing BS? Effective enforcement is IMO a better idea than trying to reinvent an approval system unless the original is hopelessly flawed and it wasn't back when I was involved, now, I don't know but I doubt it is. IMO the best way forward to improve things would not be reinvention but be regular testing to make sure batches don't slip and effective enforcement. Most of this is relatively simple stuff and it shouldn't be a indecipherable or impossible to implement and enforce minefield and it shouldn't cost the taxpayer anything as the cost should be shouldered by the manufacturer or if they're out of reach the importer.

Minor point. afaik TCF don't have to exist as a physical book, physical file or computer record but the manufacturer has to be able to compile one in a reasonable time. For example the ones I was involved with would typically not include purchase records, computer or firmware programs or detailed component specs or circuit diagrams but would include details of what these things were and where they were held.

if you turn it sideways it’s one person taking another up the ‘arris.

It’s the China Export mark and tells you only that the product was manufactured in China and is not a mark of conformity to any European standard.