This paper considers the case of fire protective products and the characteristic resistance to fire only (a characteristic requiring notified body certification and which is under the Construction Products Regulation (CPR)). The principles and recommendations, however, may be extended to other fire performance characteristics and to products requiring notified body testing.
An increasing number of restrictions on which bodies may undertake the writing of Extended Application (EXAP) and fire classification reports are being written into CEN standards and guidance
from the Group of Notified Bodies (GNB), limiting the body able to write such reports to the one which performed initial type testing. SBS considers such restrictions to be unacceptable, as they
disproportionately discriminate against SMEs which do not have the equipment required to perform initial type tests.