Introduction

Classes and uses of pesticides

Legal framework

Approval Levels

Scientific information in the regulatory process.

Risk Assessment Process

Constitution and function of the various organisations

Management of pesticides in the future.

Current Members....

A list of current members and their declared interests is published each year in the ACP’s annual report. (Areas of expertise)

The ACP is supported by about 20 “advisers”, mainly from government departments and agencies such as English Nature and the Food Standards Agency. These advisers provide expertise in policy, operational and scientific matters that are not covered by members of the Committee. In addition, each department involved in the regulatory process has one “assessor” who is responsible for signing off Committee recommendations on behalf of their Minister or for obtaining their Minister’s agreement.

The ACP meets approximately six times per year, and a large part of its business is to consider applications for approval and reviews of existing approvals for pesticide products. The law requires that the ACP should be involved in every decision, however minor, to grant, amend or revoke an approval.

However, it would be impractical for the Committee to consider every one of the thousands of individual decisions that the registration authorities make in the course of a year. (Minor decisions include a range of changes, all of which are minor in terms of regulatory novelty or difficulty. Examples might include changes in company names, adding an additional crop to the list of approved uses for a product etc.)

A system has therefore been evolved under which the Committee deals directly with the most important decisions, and sets a framework within which PSD and HSE work when dealing with the remainder. Thus, the ACP looks at the first commercial level approval of active substances new to the UK, at reviews, and also at any applications for approval which appear to raise new concerns or generic issues that require clarification.