- Trading Standards to perform spot checks on children’s fancy dress costumes for sale across the UK
- Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and British Standards Institute evaluating whether European safety standards are tough enough
- News comes ahead of National Fire Safety Campaign
Original Author: Assent Risk Management
Original Links: N/A
On the 24th September 2015 a Business Secretary, Sajid Javid, asked for a national investigation into the safety of children’s fancy dress costumes.
Inspectors from Trading Standards will perform spot checks on hundreds of retailers up and down the United Kingdom selling fancy dress costumes. The costumes will undergo flammability testing to assess whether they are safe for sale and compliant with safety standards.
Health & Safety
This news has come about after Claudia Winkleman, a TV Presenter, raised her apprehensions about the safety of fancy dress attire when her daughter suffered serious burns when her costume caught fire.
The tests could be much needed as it is coming up to Halloween, in which more or less every child will be out in fancy dress. This will give parents more piece of mind as all costumes would have been checked by and must abide by the safety standards.
Trading Standards is set to report back to the Business Secretary on its findings later in the autumn.
As an added move, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills is working with the British Standards Institute to judge whether European safety standards in this area need to be toughened-up.
The findings from the Trading Standards investigation will form a significant evidence base for this work.
The government is also supporting National Burn Awareness day on 21 October, a national fire safety campaign led by the Children’s Burns Trust, to raise awareness on the dangers of fire.
- Trading Standards will test the costumes against European Standard EN 71-2 which specifies flammability requirements for toys.
- The safety requirements of safety for children’s fancy dress costumes are covered by EU Directive 2009/48/EC on the safety of toys, transposed into UK law by the Toys (Safety) Regulations 2011.
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Find all information, PLUS, comments from Chief Executive at the Chartered Trading Standards Institute (CTSI), and comments from the Business Secretary below: