Article 67U.K.Type-approval authority responsible for technical services
1.The approval authority designated by the Member State in accordance with Article 6(2), (referred to for the purposes of this Chapter as the ‘type-approval authority’), shall be responsible for the assessment, designation, notification and monitoring of technical services, including, where appropriate, the subcontractors or subsidiaries of those technical services. The type-approval authority may decide that the assessment and monitoring of technical services and, where appropriate, of the subcontractors or subsidiaries of those technical services, is to be carried out by a national accreditation body.
2.Type-approval authorities shall be subject to peer evaluations in respect of any activity which they carry out related to the assessment and monitoring of technical services.
Peer evaluations shall cover the assessments of the entire or partial operations of technical services that have been carried out by type-approval authorities in accordance with Article 73(4), including the competence of the personnel, the correctness of the test and inspection methodology and the correctness of test results based on a defined scope of regulatory acts listed in Part I of Annex II.
Activities related to the assessment and monitoring of technical services that only deal with national individual approvals that were granted in accordance with Article 45 or with national type-approvals of vehicles produced in small series that were granted in accordance with Article 42 are exempted from peer evaluations
Any assessment of accredited technical services by type-approval authorities shall be exempt from peer evaluations.
3.Type-approval authorities shall not be subject to peer evaluations when they designate all their technical services exclusively on the basis of accreditation of the technical services.
4.The type-approval authority shall not provide consultancy services on a commercial or competitive basis.
5.The type-approval authority shall have a sufficient personnel at its disposal to carry out the tasks laid down in this Regulation.
6.Each Member State shall provide the Commission, the Forum and other Member States that so request with information on its procedures for the assessment, designation and notification of technical services and for the monitoring of technical services, and of any changes to the procedures.
The Commission may adopt implementing acts laying down the model for the provision of information on the procedures of the Member States referred to in the first subparagraph of this paragraph. Those implementing acts shall be adopted in accordance with the examination procedure referred to in Article 83(2).
7.Type-approval authorities that are subject to peer-evaluations shall establish procedures for internal audits in accordance with Appendix 2 of Annex III. Such internal audits shall be performed at least once a year. However, the frequency of internal audits may be reduced if the type-approval authority can demonstrate that its management system is being implemented effectively and has proven stability.
8.Peer-evaluations of a type-approval authority shall be carried out at least once every five years by a peer-evaluation team, composed of two type-approval authorities from other Member States.
The Commission may decide to participate in the peer-evaluation team on the basis of a risk assessment analysis.
The peer-evaluation shall be carried out under the responsibility of the approval authority that is subject to evaluation, and shall include a visit to the premises of a technical service selected at the discretion of the peer-evaluation team.
Type-approval authorities that are not subject to peer-evaluation in accordance with paragraph 3 shall not be included in any of the activities related to the peer-evaluation team.
9.Taking duly into account the considerations of the Forum, the Commission may adopt implementing acts setting out a plan for peer-evaluations covering a period of at least five years, laying down criteria concerning the composition of the peer-evaluation team, the methodology used for the peer-evaluation, the schedule, periodicity and the other tasks related to the peer-evaluation. Those implementing acts shall be adopted in accordance with the examination procedure referred to in Article 83(2).
10.The outcome of the peer evaluations shall be examined by the Forum. The Commission shall draw up summaries of the outcome of peer evaluations and make them public.