UK Updates Designated Standards for Toys Safety Regulations

Background


The UK's Department for Business and Trade (together with Office for Product Safety and Standards, and Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy) published a Notice ref. 0093/23 on 22 November 2023, to update the references to standards for toys in support of the Toys (Safety) Regulations 2011 (S.I. 2011/1881) for England, Wales and Scotland.


The updated standards are listed in Part 1 of Annex I to this latest notice, showing details of the amendment(s) to the previous list of standards set out in Annex I to the previous notice 0084/23.
 

For clarity, Part 2 of Annex I to this latest notice sets out the complete list of references of standards, which have been published and accordingly are designated for the purposes of S.I. 2011/1881 as at the date of this notice.


Changes

The amendment is on row 11 (for “Electric toys — Safety”) of the list of standards:

Latest Consolidated List

The latest consolidated list of standards is as below:

Informative Notes

Notes 1 and 2 are original items, while note 3 is newly added:

1. The interpretation of clause 7 of the standard should be taken to require that test portions should not be made up of combined materials prior to the migration and analysis stages of the test.
2. The limit values in point (a) of Table 2 of clause 4.2 of standard ‘EN 71-12:2016 Safety of toys – Part 12: N-Nitrosamines and N-nitrosatable substances’ are lower than the limit values to be complied with set in point 8 of part 3 of Schedule 2 to S.I. 2011/1881. In particular those values are as follows:

3. The presumption of conformity with the essential requirements of the Toys (Safety) Regulations, as provided for in those Regulations, applies through application of the above standard.
   The content of this note has been brought to the attention of the relevant standard committee in respect to toys containing or supplied with button and coin type batteries to consider the additional measures below for the next revision of the standard.
   
   In the meantime, users of EN 62115 are encouraged to follow the additional voluntary measures below for any toys that contain a coin or button battery:
   
   (a)    For button and coin batteries – appropriate warnings on the packaging of toys, indicating the presence and hazards associated with such batteries, as well as actions to be taken in the event of a battery being swallowed or inserted into the body. As well as consideration for an appropriate graphical symbol to accompany these warnings.
   (b)    Where practical and appropriate placing a pictorial warning and/or hazard marking on toys containing a button or coin battery.
   (c)    Provision of information in the toy’s accompanying instruction manual (or on its packaging) of the symptoms of button or coin battery ingestion and the need to seek immediate medical attention in the event of such a suspected ingestion.
   (d)    Where coin or button batteries are supplied with a toy, and these are not pre-installed in the battery compartment; these batteries should be supplied in child resistant packaging and appropriate warning markings placed on this packaging.
   (e)    Using coin and button batteries that are durably and indelibly marked with a pictorial warning indicating they should be kept out of reach of children or vulnerable persons.

Effective Date

This updated list of designated standards has already come into effect as at the date of this notice (22 November 2023).


Reference:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/designated-standards-toy-safety
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/655c9e18544aea000dfb31b5/ds-0093-23-toys-notice.pdf

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