Peer reviews in market surveillance

During 2014, PROSAFE has again coordinated two other CIMS (Continuous Improvement in Market Surveillance) Reviews. These are reviews performed amongst peer market surveillance authorities in order to further improve their performance and activities by learning from each other’s best practices as well as giving advice to each other where applicable.

Nine market surveillance authorities coming from the following Member States: Bulgaria, Greece, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovenia, Malta, Sweden and the UK, were involved in these CIMS Reviews. Michael Cassar, the Director of the Market Surveillance Directorate within the Malta Competition and Consumer Affairs Authority (MCCAA) has been the task leader for these two CIMS reviews.

The first CIMS review for this year was held in June at the Swedish Electrical Safety Board (SNESB) in Kristinehamn, Sweden. SNESB is highly specialized in the area of LVD and EMC and therefore it was agreed that the CIMS Review Team will visit SNESB to mainly review and better understand best practices applied in practice by this authority in the area of LVD, whilst at the same time giving some recommendations for improvement too.

The second CIMS review was held in July in London, UK. The Trading Standards Institute (TSI) was the main contact point and coordinator from the UK side for this particular CIMS Review. During the visit, the review team had an opportunity to discuss a number of interesting topics / best practices with various representatives from the TSI, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, the Better Regulation Delivery Office, the Trading Standards - Hampshire County Council, the National Trading Standards eCrime Team, the National Trading Standards Intelligence Team and also the Single Point of Contact for Border Controls - Trading Standards Public Protection Directorate Suffolk County Council. A report from this meeting is available here.

A number of best practices were identified which are highlighted within the respective CIMS reports, which are available to market surveillance authorities from within the European Economic Area. These CIMS Review exercises have always been found to be very useful to both the host authority as well as the reviewing team. Refer to further information as well as remarks made directly by those who have been involved in such CIMS Reviews by clicking here.