REQUIREMENT FOR ACCREDITATION TO THE UK NATIONAL STANDARD FOR MARINE OIL SPILL RESPONSE ORGANISATIONS
You will be aware that, on 1st November 2018, a one-year ‘grace-period’ to enable UK Marine Oil Spill Response Organisations (OSROs)to become accredited to the UK National Standard for Marine Oil Spill Response Organisations (‘The Standard’) commenced.
We are shortly approaching the halfway point of this grace period and are aware that fewer OSROs than expected have applied for accreditation at this time.
This letter is to remind all OSROs that failure of any OSRO to gain accreditation to The Standard by the end of the ‘grace period’ (1stNovember 2019) will result in the OSRO not being recognised by the MCA and OPRED as fulfilling the requirement for Tier 2 service provision for UK ports, harbours, terminals and offshore installations.
It is worth noting that delaying the accreditation process to the latter end of the remaining period should be avoided as the designated Accreditors have a finite capacity, it would be unrealistic to expect them to be able to manage a tsunami of late requests in the time available.
There are currently two approved accreditation bodies for The Standard; the Nautical Institute, and ISAS.
ISAS: http://www.spillonline.org/osro-intro.html
Contact: Mr John Dawes
johnadawes@btinternet.com
NI: https://www.nautinst.org/
Contact: Mr Bernie Bennett
Bernie.bennett@nautinst.org
To view The Standard, and for more information, please visit the gov.uk website:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-national-standard-for-marine-oil-spill-response-organisations
Your action in this matter is appreciated. If you have any queries, please direct them to: Jayne Ede, Custodian of the UK National Standard for Marine Oil Spill Response Organisations
ukresponderstandard@mcga.gov.uk Tel: 020 381 72277 Mob: 07970 143493