3.15 Compliance statements

Compliance statements are located after requirement clauses in Section 5 of a Standard. They provide a mechanism by which methodologies are suggested for demonstrating Customer Equipment’s compliance with a particular requirement. The Interpretative Guidelines in Section 1 of every Standard provides guidance on compliance statements.

Compliance statements only suggest methodologies but cannot mandate them. In Clause 6.1, it notes that ‘alternative methods of demonstrating compliance to those described may be used if the risk of passing non-compliant CE is not increased because of increased measurement uncertainty.’

There is no defined format for a compliance statement but typically it will follow the lines of ‘Compliance with Clause 5.x should be checked by using the method described in Clause 6.y and may also refer to an associated Figure if relevant. Alternatively, a compliance statement may be self-contained and detail the method in the statement itself, for example, if it refers to a simple measurement procedure. Where a requirement only requires inspection of the CE in operation, the compliance statement can also be worded to indicate that this is the proposed methodology.

Compliance statements should not refer to record keeping as a methodology for demonstrating compliance, e.g. to test reports, Notified Body (NB) Expert Opinions or a manufacturer’s Declaration of Conformity. Section 408 of the Telecommunications Act 1997 sets out ancillary matters to the requirement to apply a label to CE, including the record keeping requirements to demonstrate compliance with a particular applicable standard. If a Working Committee wishes for particular record keeping requirement to be adopted, this can be included as a recommendation for inclusion in the Telecommunications Labelling Notice (TLN) as a part of the submission sent to the ACMA for the making of the Standard.