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STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS


2006 No. 1270

WEIGHTS AND MEASURES

The Measuring Instruments (Non-Prescribed Instruments) Regulations 2006

  Made 28th April 2006 
  Laid before Parliament 8th May 2006 
  Coming into force
  Regulations 1, 2, 4 6 and 7 and Part 1 of Schedule 2 30th May 2006 
  Remaining regulations 30th October 2006 


CONTENTS

1. Citation and commencement
2. Interpretation
3. Application
4. Designation of notified bodies
5. Functions of notified bodies
6. Provisions supplemental to regulation 4
7. Variation and termination of designations
8. Fees
9. Compliance with the essential requirements
10. Conformity assessment procedures
11. Marking and identification requirements
12. Conformity with other directives

  SCHEDULE 1—
 PART 1— ESSENTIAL REQUIREMENTS
 PART 2— INSTRUMENT SPECIFIC REQUIREMENTS

  SCHEDULE 2— NOTIFIED BODIES
 PART 1— NOTIFIED BODY CRITERIA
 PART 2— FUNCTIONS

  SCHEDULE 3— TECHNICAL DOCUMENTATION

  SCHEDULE 4— MARKING AND INSCRIPTIONS

The Secretary of State is a Minister designated[
1] for the purposes of section 2(2) of the European Communities Act 1972[2] in relation to, and for purposes ancillary to, the regulation of specifications, construction, placing on the market and use of articles, instruments, containers or other equipment intended for weighing, measuring or testing.

     The Secretary of State makes the following Regulations under the powers conferred on him by section 2(2) of that Act.

Citation and commencement
     1. —(1) These Regulations may be cited as the Measuring Instruments (Non-Prescribed Instruments) Regulations 2006.

    (2) This regulation, regulations 2, 4, 6 and 7 and Part 1 of Schedule 2 shall come into force on 30th May 2006.

    (3) The remaining regulations shall come into force on 30th October 2006.

Interpretation
    
2. —(1) In these Regulations—

and who has been notified to the Commission and the other member States pursuant to Article 11.1;

makes up a measuring instrument;

    (2) In these Regulations a reference to a member State includes Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein[6].

    (3) References in these Regulations to an Article, Annex or a part of an Annex are references to an Article, Annex, or a part of an Annex to the Directive.

Application
     3. —(1) These Regulations apply to the following measuring instruments—

where such measuring instruments must satisfy the essential requirements in relation to legal metrological control in order to be placed on the market or put into use in another member State on or after 30th October 2006.

    (2) For the purposes of this regulation "legal metrological control" means the control of the measurement tasks intended for the field of application of a measuring instrument for reasons of public health, public safety, public order, protection of the environment, levying of taxes and duties, protection of consumers and fair trading.

Designation of notified bodies
     4. —(1) The designating authority may, on the application of a person, designate that person to be a notified body.

    (2) The designating authority shall not make a designation under paragraph (1) unless it is satisfied that the person meets the notified body criteria.

    (3) A person who meets the criteria laid down in a national standard shall be presumed to meet that part of the notified body criteria which corresponds to the criteria in the national standard.

    (4) A designation under paragraph (1)—

    (5) In exercising the power conferred on it by paragraph (1), the designating authority may (in addition to the matters of which it is required to satisfy itself pursuant to paragraph (2)) have regard to any matter appearing to it to be relevant.

    (6) The Gas and Electricity Markets Authority and the Northern Ireland Authority for Energy Regulation shall be entitled—

    (7) For the purposes of paragraph (3), "national standard" means a standard applicable to the designation of notified bodies—

Functions of notified bodies
    
5. A notified body shall carry out the functions set out in Part 2 of Schedule 2.

Provisions supplemental to regulation 4
    
6. —(1) The Secretary of State shall, from time to time, publish a list of notified bodies indicating the description of any measuring instrument in respect of which a notified body other than the Secretary of State is designated; and such a list may include information concerning any condition to which the designation of any notified body other than the Secretary of State is subject.

    (2) The designating authority shall, from time to time, carry out an inspection of notified bodies which it has designated under regulation 4 with a view to verifying that the notified body—

but, unless it appears to it that there are circumstances which make it necessary or expedient to do so, it shall not carry out an inspection within two years from the date of designation under regulation 4, or of any later inspection under this paragraph.

Variation and termination of designations
    
7. —(1) The designating authority may vary a designation made by it under regulation 4 if—

    (2) The designating authority may terminate a designation made by it under regulation 4—

    (3) Where the designating authority is minded to—

it shall—

    (4) If a designation is terminated under paragraph (2), the designating authority may—

Fees
    
8. —(1) A notified body other than the Secretary of State may charge such fees in connection with, or incidental to, the carrying out of the conformity assessment procedures or specific tasks as it may determine.

    (2) The fees referred to in paragraph (1) shall not exceed the following—

    (3) The power in paragraph (1) includes the power to require the payment of fees or a reasonable estimate of such fees in advance of carrying out the work requested by the applicant.

    (4) Where any fees payable to a notified body pursuant to this regulation remain unpaid 28 days after either the work has been completed or payment of the fees has been requested in writing, whichever is the later, that notified body may by 14 days' notice in writing provide that, unless the fees are paid before the expiry of the notice, the certificate or notification appropriate to the relevant conformity assessment procedure may be suspended until payment of the fees has been received.

Compliance with the essential requirements
    
9. —(1) Where a measuring instrument must be compliant with the essential requirements in order to be placed on the market or put into use in another member State, the manufacturer may demonstrate that the measuring instrument is compliant with the essential requirements by—

and selecting and following one of the conformity assessment procedures.

    (2) A measuring instrument which is compliant with the relevant national standard or the relevant normative document shall be presumed to be compliant with the essential requirements.

    (3) Where the instrument is compliant only in part with the relevant national standard or relevant normative document, it shall be presumed to be compliant only with that part of the essential requirements which corresponds to the element of the relevant national standard or relevant normative document with which the instrument is compliant.

Conformity assessment procedures
    
10. —(1) The conformity assessment procedures are the procedures as follows—

    (2) The manufacturer or his authorised representative shall provide to the notified body carrying out the relevant conformity assessment procedure the technical documentation set out in Schedule 3.

    (3) In this regulation—

Marking and identification requirements
    
11. —(1) Where a measuring instrument is compliant with the essential requirements—

    (2) Any other marking may be affixed to the measuring instrument provided that the visibility and legibility of the CE marking, the M marking and the identification number of the notified body are not reduced.

    (3) For the purposes of paragraph (1)—

Conformity with other directives
    
12. —(1) Where a measuring instrument falls within the scope of other directives which provide for the affixing of the CE marking, the affixing of the CE marking under these Regulations shall indicate that the instrument is also presumed to be compliant with the requirements of those other directives.

    (2) Where paragraph (1) applies, the publication reference of such other directives in the Official Journal of the European Union must be given in the documents, notices or instructions required to accompany the instrument.


Barry Gardiner
Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Competitiveness Department of Trade and Industry

28th April 2006



SCHEDULE 1
Regulation 2(1)



PART 1

ESSENTIAL REQUIREMENTS

     1. The essential requirements are the relevant requirements relating to measuring instruments contained in Annex I and the instrument specific Annexes MI-001, MI-002 (Part II only), MI-004, MI-005, MI-006, MI-008 and MI-009, set out in Parts A-G in Part 2 of this Schedule.

Definitions
     2. In this Schedule—

Allowable Errors
     3. —(1) Under rated operating conditions and in the absence of a disturbance, the error of measurement shall not exceed the maximum permissible error (MPE) value as set out in the appropriate instrument-specific requirements.

    (2) Unless stated otherwise in the instrument-specific provisions, MPE is expressed as a bilateral value of the deviation from the true measurement value.

    (3) Under rated operating conditions and in the presence of a disturbance, the performance requirement shall be as set out in the appropriate instrument specific requirements.

    (4) Where the instrument is intended to be used in a specified permanent continuous electromagnetic field the permitted performance during the radiated electromagnetic field-amplitude modulated test shall be within MPE.

    (5) The manufacturer shall specify the climatic, mechanical and electromagnetic environments in which the instrument is intended to be used, power supply and other influence quantities likely to affect its accuracy, taking account of the instrument-specific requirements.

    (6) Other influence quantities to be considered, where appropriate, are—

    (7) When carrying out the tests as envisaged in this Schedule, the following paragraphs apply—

Reproducibility
     4. The application of the same measurand in a different location or by a different user, all other conditions being the same, shall result in the close agreement of successive measurements. The difference between the measurement results shall be small when compared with the MPE.

Repeatability
     5. The application of the same measurand under the same conditions of measurement shall result in the close agreement of successive measurements. The difference between the measurement results shall be small when compared with the MPE.

Discrimination and Sensitivity
     6. A measuring instrument shall be sufficiently sensitive and the discrimination threshold shall be sufficiently low for the intended measurement task.

Durability
     7. A measuring instrument shall be designed to maintain an adequate stability of its metrological characteristics over a period of time estimated by the manufacturer, provided that it is properly installed, maintained and used according to the manufacturer's instruction when in the environmental conditions for which it is intended.

Reliability
     8. A measuring instrument shall be designed to reduce as far as possible the effect of a defect that would lead to an inaccurate measurement result, unless the presence of such a defect is obvious.

Suitability
     9. —(1) A measuring instrument shall have no feature likely to facilitate fraudulent use, whereas possibilities for unintentional misuse shall be minimal.

    (2) A measuring instrument shall be suitable for its intended use taking account of the practical working conditions and shall not require unreasonable demands of the user in order to obtain a correct measurement result.

    (3) The errors of a utility measuring instrument at flows or currents outside the controlled range shall not be unduly biased.

    (4) Where a measuring instrument is designed for the measurement of values of the measurand that are constant over time, the measuring instrument shall be insensitive to small fluctuations of the value of the measurand, or shall take appropriate action.

    (5) A measuring instrument shall be robust and its materials of construction shall be suitable for the conditions in which it is intended to be used.

    (6) A measuring instrument shall be designed so as to allow the control of the measuring tasks after the instrument has been placed on the market and put into use. If necessary, special equipment or software for this control shall be part of the instrument. The test procedure shall be described in the operation manual.

    (7) When a measuring instrument has associated software which provides other functions besides the measuring function, the software that is critical for the metrological characteristics shall be identifiable and shall not be inadmissibly influenced by the associated software.

Protection against corruption
     10. —(1) The metrological characteristics of a measuring instrument shall not be influenced in any inadmissible way by the connection to it of another device, by any feature of the connected device itself or by any remote device that communicates with the measuring instrument.

    (2) A hardware component that is critical for metrological characteristics shall be designed so that it can be secured. Security measures foreseen shall provide for evidence of an intervention.

    (3) Software that is critical for metrological characteristics shall be identified as such and shall be secured.

    (4) Software identification shall be easily provided by the measuring instrument.

    (5) Evidence of a software intervention shall be available for a reasonable period of time.

    (6) Measurement data, software that is critical for measurement characteristics and metrologically important parameters stored or transmitted shall be adequately protected against accidental or intentional corruption.

    (7) For utility measuring instruments the display of the total quantity supplied or the displays from which the total quantity supplied can be derived, whole or partial reference to which is the basis for payment, shall not be able to be reset during use.

Information to be borne by and to accompany the instrument
     11. —(1) A measuring instrument shall bear the following inscriptions:

plus, when applicable—

    (2) An instrument of dimensions too small or of too sensitive a composition to allow it to bear the relevant information shall have its packaging, if any, and the accompanying documents required by the provisions of these Regulations suitably marked.

    (3) The instrument shall be accompanied by information on its operation, unless the simplicity of the measuring instrument makes this unnecessary. Information shall be easily understandable and shall include where relevant—

    (4) Groups of identical measuring instruments used in the same location or used for utility measurements do not necessarily require individual instruction manuals.

    (5) Unless specified otherwise in an instrument-specific annex, the scale interval for a measured value shall be in the form 1 x 10n, 2 x 10n or 5 x 10n, where n is any integer or zero. The unit of measurement or its symbol shall be shown close to the numerical value.

    (6) A material measure shall be marked with a nominal value or a scale, accompanied by the unit of measurement used.

    (7) The units of measurement used and their symbols shall be in accordance with the provisions of Community legislation on units of measurement and their symbols.

    (8) All marks and inscriptions required under any requirement shall be clear, non-erasable, unambiguous and non-transferable.

Indication of result
     12. —(1) Indication of the result shall be by means of a display or hard copy.

    (2) The indication of any result shall be clear and unambiguous and accompanied by such marks and inscriptions necessary to inform the user of the significance of the result. Easy reading of the presented result shall be permitted under normal conditions of use. Additional indications may be shown provided they cannot be confused with the metrologically controlled indications.

    (3) In the case of hard copy the print or record shall also be easily legible and non-erasable.

    (4) A measuring instrument for direct sales trading transactions shall be designed to present the measurement result to both parties in the transaction when installed as intended. When critical in case of direct sales, any ticket provided to the consumer by an ancillary device not complying with the appropriate requirements of these Regulations shall bear an appropriate restrictive information.

    (5) Whether or not a measuring instrument intended for utility measurement purposes can be remotely read it shall in any case be fitted with a metrologically controlled display accessible without tools to the consumer. The reading of this display is the measurement result that serves as the basis for the price to pay.

Further processing of data to conclude the trading transaction
     13. —(1) A measuring instrument other than a utility measuring instrument shall record by a durable means the measurement result accompanied by information to identify the particular transaction, when:

    (2) Additionally, a durable proof of the measurement result and the information to identify the transaction shall be available on request at the time the measurement is concluded.

Conformity evaluation
     14. A measuring instrument shall be designed so as to allow ready evaluation of its conformity with the appropriate requirements of these Regulations.



PART 2

INSTRUMENT SPECIFIC REQUIREMENTS



Part A

Water Meters

     15. The relevant requirements of Part 1 and the specific requirements of this Part apply to water meters.

Definitions
     16. In this Schedule—

Rated Operating Conditions
     17. The manufacturer shall specify the rated operating conditions for the instrument, in particular—

    (1) The flowrate range of the water.

    (2) The temperature range of the water.

    (3) The relative pressure range of the water, the range being 0.3 bar to at least 10 bar at Q3.

    (4) For the power supply: the nominal value of the AC voltage supply and/or the limits of DC supply.

MPE
     18. —(1) The MPE, positive or negative, on volumes delivered at flowrates between the transitional flowrate (Q2) (included) and the overload flowrate (Q4) is—

    (2) The MPE, positive or negative, on volumes delivered at flowrates between the minimum flowrate (Q1) and the transitional flowrate (Q2) (excluded) is 5% for water having any temperature.

Permissible Effect of Disturbances
     19. —(1) Electromagnetic immunity

    (2) Durability

Suitability
     20. —(1) The meter shall be able to be installed to operate in any position unless clearly marked otherwise.

    (2) The manufacturer shall specify whether the meter is designed to measure reverse flow. In such a case, the reverse flow volume shall either be subtracted from the cumulated volume or shall be separately recorded. The same MPE shall apply to both forward and reverse flow.

    (3) Water meters not designed to measure reverse flow shall either prevent reverse flow or shall withstand an accidental reverse flow without any deterioration or change in metrological properties.

Units of Measurement
     21. Metered volume shall be displayed in cubic metres.

Putting into Use
     22. The member State shall ensure that the requirements under paragraphs 17(1), (2) and (3) are determined by the distributor or the person legally designated for installing the meter, so that the meter is appropriate for the accurate measurement of consumption that is foreseen or foreseeable.



Part B

Heat Meters

     23. The relevant requirements of Part 1 and the specific requirements in this Part apply to heat meters.

Definitions
     24. In this Schedule—

Rated operating conditions
     25. The values of the rated operating conditions shall be specified by the manufacturer as follows—

Accuracy classes
     26. The following accuracy classes are defined for heat meters:

MPE applicable to complete heat meters
     27. The maximum permissible relative errors applicable to a complete heat meter, expressed in percent of the true value of each accuracy class, are—

Permissible influences of electromagnetic disturbances
     28. —(1) The instrument shall not be influenced by static magnetic fields and by electromagnetic fields at mains frequency.

    (2) The influence of an electromagnetic disturbance shall be such that the change in the measurement result is not greater than the critical change value as laid down in sub-paragraph (3) or the indication of the measurement result is such that it cannot be interpreted as a valid result.

    (3) The critical change value for a complete heat meter is equal to the absolute value of the MPE applicable to that heat meter (see paragraph 27).

Durability
     29. —(1) After an appropriate test, taking into account the period of time estimated by the manufacturer, has been performed, the following criteria shall be satisfied—

Inscriptions on a heat meter
     30. The following must be inscribed on the meter—

Sub-assemblies
     31. The provisions for sub-assemblies may apply to sub-assemblies manufactured by the same or different manufacturers. Where a heat meter consists of sub-assemblies, the essential requirements for the heat meter apply to the sub-assemblies as relevant. In addition, the following apply—

Putting into use
     32. —(1) Where a member State imposes measurement of residential use, it shall allow such measurement to be performed by means of any Class 3 meter.

    (2) Where a member State imposes measurement of commercial and/or light industrial use, it is authorised to require any Class 2 meter.

    (3) As regards the requirements under paragraph 25(a) to (d), member States shall ensure that the properties be determined by the distributor or the person legally designated for installing the meter, so that the meter is appropriate for the accurate measurement of consumption that is foreseen or foreseeable.



Part C

Measuring System for the Continuous and Dynamic Measurement of Quantities of Liquids other than Water

     33. —(1) The relevant requirements of Part 1 and the specific requirements of this Part apply to measuring systems intended for the continuous and dynamic measurement of quantities (volumes or masses) of liquids other than water.

    (2) If appropriate, the terms "volume" and "L" in this Part can be read as "mass" and "kg".

Definitions
     34. In this Part C—

Rated operating conditions
     35. —(1) The manufacturer shall specify the rated operating conditions for the instrument, in particular—

    (2) The flowrate range.

The flowrate range is subject to the following conditions—


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