Full Membership of the Organisation Internationale de Métrologie Légale - Regulatory Impact and Compliance Cost Statement

August 2003

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Business Compliance Cost Statement

• Approvals
• Non-Regulated Fees

Compliance costs will arise from:

• An increase of $53 per hour for fees charged for the processing of approval applications; and
• An increase of $46.25 per hour for contestable fees associated with accreditation applications and the testing of standards by Inspectors of Weights and Measures.

The following parties are affected:

• Organisations that service, manufacture and import and export weighing and measuring equipment. There are approximately 33 organisations that annually submit weighing and measuring instruments for approval. Most of these are small organisations that submit one or two instruments annually, however three or four larger organisations may submit up to six instruments in a year.
• Accredited persons who are authorised to certify weighing and measuring instruments used for trade. There are currently 40 accredited organisations. These organisations range in size from sole traders to large companies with branches throughout New Zealand. Accredited persons are required to have their standards calibrated annually.
• Users of weighing and measuring instruments who may have costs passed on from accredited persons due to increased standards calibration and auditing costs.

The estimated cost of the proposal is based on the past two years of activity.

Approvals

Non-Regulated Fees

The time taken to process individual approval applications depends on what type of instrument is submitted, the amount of supporting documentation and the tests required. On average, a full approval requiring all the necessary tests takes between 40 to 60 hours. Approvals based on overseas test results and variants to existing approvals take between 2 and 10 hours each.

Accreditation audit time varies depending on the location, number of individuals and the degree of corrective action required. These may vary from 4 hours per person to 20 hours per person.

Standards calibration time is dependent on the size, amount, type and location of the standards submitted for testing.

The estimated compliance costs are based on the average total revenue for the past two years. The average annual revenue over this period was $112,500. The difference between the years was 17%.

It is expected that the level of fees will remain static over the next three years, as membership costs of OIML have been set. Predicted overhead reductions will offset any possible salary rise for the person servicing the OIML membership within this period.

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