ISO-Related Legislation Updates

This month's blog we'll be briefly touching on ISO/Standard(s)-related legislation updates.

ISO 14001

Circular Economy (Scotland) Act 2024

This Act received Royal Assent on 8th August 2024, and will commence on a date to be decided by the Scottish Ministers. It introduces measures to facilitate the transition of Scotland's economy to a circular model, as well as modernise Scotland's waste and recycling services, by:

requiring Ministers to prepare a circular economy strategy for Scotland;
imposing statutory targets on the Scottish Government for the delivery of a circular economy through secondary legislation;
prohibiting or restricting the disposal of unsold consumer goods in order to prevent such goods from ending up in landfill;
imposing charges on single-use items to encourage the move towards use of reusable alternatives;
imposing a duty of care on householders and setting targets for local authorities regarding household waste and its recycling;
expanding Local Authorities' enforcement powers, for example, in relation to fly-tipping and littering from vehicles.

ISO 14001

Historic Environment (Wales) Act 2023 (Commencement) Order 2024

This Order brings into force, on 4th November 2024, the remaining uncommenced provisions of the Historic Environment (Wales) Act 2023. The 2023 Act consolidates the existing law in relation to the conservation of historic environment of Wales, including legal protections for:

monuments of special historic interest;
buildings of architectural or historic interest; and
conservation areas.

These changes are unlikely to affect your legal obligations, but may require your legal register to be updated if your activities involve owning or working with historic monuments or buildings.

ISO 27001 / GDPR/DPA

ICO Releases Update to Privacy Notice Generator for SMEs

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has updated its Privacy Notice Generator to include new sector-specific versions of the privacy notice generator for customer and supplier information.

These are for the following sectors:

professional services (including finance, insurance and legal services);
education and childcare;
health and social care; and
charity and voluntary.

The tool offers SMEs an easy step-by-step process that creates tailored privacy notices that are geared toward the business’s specific role and creates two different types of notices; the first for organisations to display on their websites and external communications; the second for internal communications geared toward staff members and volunteers.

ISO 45001

Personal Protective Equipment at Work (Amendment) Regulations

(Northern Ireland) 2024

These Regulations come into force on 21st October 2024 and amend the Personal Protective Equipment at Work Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1993 to make changes mirroring those made to the regulation of PPE in Great Britain in 2022.

These changes extend the obligation on employers found in the 1993 Regulations to a wider group of workers, known as “limb (b) workers”, who have more casual employment relationships than employees.

Limb (b) workers are defined by the Health and Safety Executive as workers who:

carry out casual or irregular work for one or more organisations;
after 1 month of continuous service, receive holiday pay but not other employment rights such as the minimum period of statutory notice;
only carry out work if they choose to;
have a contract or other arrangement to do work or services personally for a reward (the contract doesn’t have to be written), and only have a limited right to send someone else to do the work, for example swapping shifts with someone on a pre-approved list (subcontracting); and
are not in business for themselves (they do not advertise services directly to customers who can then also book their services directly).