Member Support Required for Standard and Specification development

Standard and Specification representational work proceeds through the various Technical Panels within CIHT and is coordinated by the SASAG.  The need for CIHT to coordinate and in the future increase its influence on Standard and Specification development is recognised.  This is entirely dependent on CIHT delivering strong and consistent input into the relevant external committees and groups that control standards and specifications.

The following is needed from CIHT members:

• Member representatives are requested to participate and contribute fully to the groups, panels or committees for which they are nominated.
• Member representatives are requested to encourage and enable similar consultative processes within their own organisations so that as broad an input as possible feeds into standards and specification development.
• Member representatives should be appropriately supported in terms of time and if necessary expenditure by their employers in relation to the various demands of representation work – reading, consulting, collating, preparing, travel, reporting back etc.
• Member representatives should be aware that formal representation is often not short term in nature – initial standards development work in Europe took close to 20 years and is now on a 5-year review cycle.

Delivery Protocol

CIHT representatives must be given clear direction and guidance from CIHT. This should include a number of key guiding principles against which all developments in standards and specifications should be judged. This includes but is not limited to:

• Compliance with current laws and regulations including Competition law. This should ensure that monopoly positions or vested interests cannot be protected by Standards or Regulations. This is unprofessional and the penalties for not complying with competition law are severe.
• Any significant additional costs or bureaucracy incurred must be balanced or outweighed by benefits of reducing risk, improving performance and/or long term value.
• Developments should not conflict with sustainability objectives across the wider industry.
• Ensuring a ‘level playing field’ for UK industry in terms of cost and access to market.

Where a specific issue is seen as a major change or threat to current standards or practices that could have a significant impact on the UK, a briefing paper should be submitted to the relevant CIHT group. This should be circulated at the earliest opportunity for discussion to derive a consensus CIHT view.  To contact CIHT please email technical@ciht.org.uk

CIHT representatives on the BSI and other industry bodies must provide regular feedback to the relevant CIHT group on the activities of the committee(s) on which they sit.  To do this please email technical@ciht.org.uk

The feedback will be in the form of documented notes and where permitted minutes of meetings.  The intention should be to place as much of this information on the CIHT SASAG website as possible to allow CIHT member interaction.

When a CIHT representative is not available to attend a meeting of an industry group then depending on the nature (importance) of the meeting a ‘deputy’ should be sought via CIHT SASAG.

Wherever possible CIHT representatives should give 6 months notice of standing down from external committees to allow adequate time for a suitable replacement to be found and for any necessary handover to take place.

CIHT staff will continue to act as the primary facilitators/conduits for distribution of relevant documents, drafts and data in support of discussions and ensure ongoing relationships with relevant stakeholders are maintained.