Low cost guides and standards?

[Wiz]

There have been many comments on this forum over the years complaining that British Standards are too expensive.

People appear to be particularly annoyed that amendments to existing BSs' can only be bought by purchasing another copy of the full BS that incorporates the amendment(s)

Does anyone agree with my suggestion that copies of any 'guidance' document acceptable in a court of law as evidence, should be available to anyone at basically no charge? this would mean any Law, regulation, recommendation, code of practice etc. etc. If it is not available at no charge it can never be used as evidence in a court of law.

When I say basically no charge, I mean that you would still have to pay for the cost of printing and distribution for 'hard copies' but all other costs (committees, discussions, research & writing) would be met by the Government or the EU.

Any comments?

[StuartH]

I agree whole heartedly. It should be as per the RRO guides and the Approved Documents - Free to download, or pay to purchase a hard copy.

[colin todd]

I ate out tonight at the local. As I have to eat, I think its a disgrace that I had to pay for the staff, the lease on the property, heating, gas, etc. I think I should only have paid for the ingrdients- a nice bit of turbot that cost me £15 but could be bought in the supermarket for a fiver. I think that the govt-which means all of you- and the EU-which means all of you plus a load of johnny foreigners- should have paid the rest for me.

[Benzerari]

This issue is world wide, something works in one way system only. It must be some other ways to make the code of practice more affordable to every body, other wise let's consider BS institution as one of the institutions developing code of practices and not the only one, give then chance to competition to drop down the price.

By the way, in Algeria i.e. the regulations printout costs half the monthly salary of an engineer, it's even worse.

They want you to do things by the book, mean while they make the process even very expansive. 

What's the difference between the hard jobs of some one who published his own book at the unit price of £30, and the BS developers of code of practices which cost 10 times the normal price? is't really the content? the quality of paper? the time taken to do the job? the number of people involved?...

[David Rooney]

I don't think anybody really resents paying a fee for the standards... the point is that the fee seems to be unreasonable.

£200 ish for pt 1 of the standard alone, there's around 20,000 NICEIC companies that need it, and let's say the same amount of fire companies... even if you said half of that lot bought legit copies, thats £4,000,000 minimum in revenue.... nice work if you can get it....!

It wouldn't be so bad if having bought a legit copy of a standard, you shouldn't have to pay for amendments because someone has spotted a few spelling mistakes and the odd "should" instead of "shall".

[Tall Paul]

The number of standards that I need to refer to is phenomenal, and were I to purchase each one then I wouldn't be able to eat out - ever.  However I do subscribe to an on-line technical library which meets almost all of my needs in relation to fire safety and the built environment.  I therefore don't need to starve my children in order to work, and neither do the authors of the various books.  I'd recommend it.

Paul

[StuartH]

Why are BS standards so much more expensive that the RRO guides and the Approved Documents? Are the BSI saying that more work goes into the production of a typical BS than the Approved Documents? Perhaps it's because the organisations behind the publication of the RRO guides and Approved Documents are non profit making organisations who's main focus is promoting best practice rather than lining their pockets.

CT says he went to a restaurant last night. I suspect when it comes to Mr & Mrs CT deciding on were to go, they have more than one restaurant to pick from. So they pick an appropriate restaurant having regard for the type of food they want, quality of service, quality of food and the price. When it comes to the purchase of BSI's we don't have a choice. I'm sure CT would have ended up spending far far more for his meal last night if the restaurant he went to was the only restaurant in the UK.

[Wiz]

Why are BS standards so much more expensive that the RRO guides and the Approved Documents? Are the BSI saying that more work goes into the production of a typical BS than the Approved Documents? Perhaps it's because the organisations behind the publication of the RRO guides and Approved Documents are non profit making organisations who's main focus is promoting best practice rather than lining their pockets.

CT says he went to a restaurant last night. I suspect when it comes to Mr & Mrs CT deciding on were to go, they have more than one restaurant to pick from. So they pick an appropriate restaurant having regard for the type of food they want, quality of service, quality of food and the price. When it comes to the purchase of BSI's we don't have a choice. I'm sure CT would have ended up spending far far more for his meal last night if the restaurant he went to was the only restaurant in the UK.

Great Post S Hood! 

[Wiz]

I ate out tonight at the local. As I have to eat, I think its a disgrace that I had to pay for the staff, the lease on the property, heating, gas, etc. I think I should only have paid for the ingrdients- a nice bit of turbot that cost me £15 but could be bought in the supermarket for a fiver. I think that the govt-which means all of you- and the EU-which means all of you plus a load of johnny foreigners- should have paid the rest for me.

Colin, I believe the explanations of laws rules and regulations should be available to everyone, not just those that can afford them.

This is particularly true when it relates to recommendations that explain best practice in respect of anything that provides everyone with a safer living and working environment.

If these recommendation documents were paid through taxation like everything else that is meant to be equally available to the whole population i.e health care & education then we wouldn't have the situation where a self-employed worker does not have the financial resources to get access to every document that he requires.

I'm surprised that you brought Johnny Foreigner into the discussion. I only mentioned the EU. There are no Johnny Foreigners in the EU, only our European brothers! But we are in the EU now, and many of the documents in question are meant to be European-wide standards, in which case, I suggested that they might, therefore, be funded by the EU.

I've note that other posts are arguing that the BSs' are not value for money. I personally have never really thought this to be the case (except in the case of having to pay for a full new standard after just a couple of amendments!) I just wondered if the cost for them (other than printing and distribution) should be borne by the Government.

Obviously the Government might want to see some value for what they are paying for and this might change things somewhat for the BSI if they are not providing value for money at present

[nearlythere]

"Colin, I believe the explanations of laws rules and regulations should be available to everyone, not just those that can afford them."

Are they not Wiz?

It's the many guides and codes of practice, containing the life saving advice, which has ownership of the commercial aspects. To my mind if it has a price then it has no place as a public safety document.

[GregC]

You complain about standards for Fire Alarms, sheesh you should check out the Intruder sector.
Standards where superseeded before they were in print yet we still have to buy them to keep up with the SSAIB requirements.

What has made a huge difference is the annual subscription to BS, gives you online access to all the relevant standards, its good for us as we have to pay the SSAIB several hundred £ to be a member and the extra charge for the BS scheme is a fraction in comparision.

They come with your company name embedded so before you ask for illegal copies the answers no 

[colin todd]

David, none of the amendments were to change should to shall, not least for the reason that you cant have a shall in a code of practice. The amendments were to take account of user comments and things people WANTED changed.

[colin todd]

BSI is not a profit making organization, but it lost a lot of govt funding over the years, and it seems fair enough as I do not particularly want my 40% of salary going to the manufacturers of condoms and installers of intruder alarm systems, so they can buy standards cheap. I never said I took Mrs CT to the restaurant, but if there were only one in the world I would still go there as I never cook meals. I would be happy to pay their prices if I was satisfied they were not making any profit. If you work in a profession, you need the tools to do the job. Thats life I am afraid.

[Wiz]

BSI is not a profit making organization, but it lost a lot of govt funding over the years, and it seems fair enough as I do not particularly want my 40% of salary going to the manufacturers of condoms and installers of intruder alarm systems, so they can buy standards cheap. I never said I took Mrs CT to the restaurant, but if there were only one in the world I would still go there as I never cook meals. I would be happy to pay their prices if I was satisfied they were not making any profit. If you work in a profession, you need the tools to do the job. Thats life I am afraid.

Sorry Colin but I totally disagree. These are just the sort of things I want my Government to be spending my money on.

If we have to have 'rules' in this world then the explanation of those 'rules' should be freely and cheaply available so that everyone has equal chance of understanding them.

I want to ensure my condom manufacturer produces a safe and reliable product based on standards experts have decreed is necessary.

And I want these standards to be available to anyone who wants to manufacture condoms in a way that allows a proper free market economy to operate.

I certainly don't want a new prospective player in the condom manufacturing industry to be restricted by excessive start-up or operating costs due to the cost of 'information'. Especially information that has been 'created' by the existing players in the condom manufacturing industry.

I want my Government to fund an organisation like British Standards to ensure this. But preferably one organisation and one standard.

That's my opinion and I know that others share it.

I don't expect everyone to agree with us because people have their own reasons for supporting their own opinions.

[David Rooney]

David, none of the amendments were to change should to shall, not least for the reason that you cant have a shall in a code of practice. The amendments were to take account of user comments and things people WANTED changed.

12.2.1 4) reduction of the battery voltage to less than the voltage specified in BS EN 54-4 at which a fault
warning shall be given (within 30 min of occurrence).

Best we have another amendment then......!!!  

I still don't see why amendments could not be free, if the BSI are not for profit they must be sitting on a nice little pension fund...!

Apparently they are a Royal Charter organisation and don't have to publish their accounts... can we use the freedom of info act ??