Federal Service for Surveillance on Consumer Rights Protection and Human Wellbeing

The organization's history goes back to the Decree of the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR "On the sanitary authorities of the Republic" dated 15 September 1922.

Up until 2004, 2218 separate sanitary-epidemiological stations (centers) functioned in Russia.

The current structure of the organization was determined by the decree of the President of Russia on March 9, 2004 No. 314 "On the system and structure of federal bodies of executive power". It initially reported to the Ministry of Health. In accordance with the presidential decree of May 21, 2012 No. 636 "On the structure of federal executive bodies", it is now under the direct oversight of the Government of Russia. From the establishment of the Federal Service (2004) until October 2013, it was headed by Gennady Onishchenko. The current head of Rospotrebnadzor is Anna Popova.

The service currently employs, in total, approximately 110,000 professionals in its various bodies and organizations.

Rospotrebnadzor in the plan of regulating of the state functions connected with the technical regulation, evaluation of conformity or other kinds of state regulating performs the following functions:

• Performs the sanitary control, control and issuing some kinds of permissive documents;
• Performs licensing of certain kinds of activities;
• Performs certification of different objects of evaluating of conformity to Russian legislation.
• Performs sanitary certification of production according to the requirements of the Customs Union;
• Performs state registration of production of the RF (excepting medicaments);
• Performs state registration of production of the Customs Union on the territory of Russia (with the exception of pharmaceuticals).

Even listing the kinds of activities of Rospotrebnadzor, connected with drawing up different kinds of permissive documents makes a significant list. Let's give more details about some certain directions while receiving permissive documents.

Permissive documents of Rospotrebnadzor are issued in the form of Permit for exploitation of buildings and premises. This document testifies about the fact that the premises conforms to the requirements to performing a certain kind of activity and providing some kind of service. This document is obligatory for receiving for owners of restaurants and cafes, food shops and swimming pools, children's preschool, school institutions, medical cabinets and clinics, by providing hair-dresser, laundry and other similar institutions.

The function of permissive document is brought by negotiation of the Program of Industrial Control of an object of any legal entity or an individual entrepreneur that applied to Rospotrebnadzor in order to draw up a sanitary conclusion or permit for exploitation or in other cases. This Program appears to be the plan of sanitary measurements of an organization or institutions that allow meet all the requirements of the Russian sanitary legislation.

It is clear that such kind of permissive documents is called a license, that is drawn up after performing an analysis of the documents presented before the body of licensing, that prove performing all the requirements of licensing set for the certain kind of activities.

Rospotrebnadzor is authorized to draw up permissive documents for the following directions of licensed kinds of entrepreneurship:

• Activities connected with application of provocatives of infection diseases;
• Activities connected with application of sources of ionizing radiation.

Issuing different kinds of documents is performed both by territorial bodies of Rospotrebnadzor and its central apparatus depending on the class of danger of apparatus of ionizing radiation and the class of danger of provocatives of infection diseases. Drawing up permissive documents is primarily required for meeting requirements of the Federal Law "About Sanitary Well Being of the population of the RF".

The kind of drawn up permissive documents primarily depends on the object suffering evaluation of conformity. So, for many kinds of production it was required to draw up the sanitary-epidemiologic conclusion. The SEC, this was the widely known name of thus famous document. But from 1 July 2012 issuing of these permissive documents was stopped. They were replaced by the Certificate of State Registration of the Customs Union and the Expert Conclusion.

The Expert Conclusion is not the direct analog of the SEC. Earlier, until 1 July 2010, the mandatory sanitary-epidemiologic conclusion (SEC) or hygienic certificate for realization both Russian and foreign goods were required for the most part of production on the Russian market. All the children's goods, all the production that we eat, drink or wear, or all that we use in our everyday life underwent the mandatory evaluation of conformity to SNiPs or SanPins. After the moment that the legislation of the Customs Union went into force, for some groups of goods that may do the most significant harm with their unquality, it became necessary to prove the conformity with the help of the unified requirements of the CU by means of drawing up of the Certificate of State Registration of the CU.

In the same document, that states the list of such production (Decision of the CU Commission 299 of 28 May 2010) in the first part there is a list of the goods for which by crossing the border of the RF (CU) there can be the necessity of sanitary-epidemiologic control. In this case for this kind of production we'll need the hygienic certificate – the Expert Conclusion of the Rospotrebnadzor.

The Expert Conclusion of the Rospotrebnadzor unlike the SEC appears to be the voluntary document. As the situation of the sanitary control may occur or may not occur. The reason why the customs services may require sanitary documents and going through hygienic control of the load may be as follows:

Injured cartridge, conveyor or other kind of package in which transportation of the load is performed; Mismatch between documents and loads detected; There is information about breaking that is connected with given delivery, about mismatch between the documents and the contents of the transport units and in some other cases.

The permissive documents of Rospotrebnadzor are mandatory to draw up for the production included into the List of the goods to go through sanitary control by crossing the border of the CU, that was approved by the Commission of the CU on 18 July 2010.

If the production is included into the first part of this document, so the kind of the permissive document of the Rospotrebnadzor is the Expert Conclusion. If the production is included into the second part of the document, so the kind of the document of Rospotrebnadzor is the Certificate of State Registration of the CU.

The both documents are possible to be received only on the base of the Expert Conclusion after the performed certification tests, done by the certification laboratory (having authorization of the CU). They prove that the studied product meets the Unified sanitary requirements of the three countries the Union members.

Such documents must be received also for these kinds of Russian production if they are firstly manufactured for realization on the market of the Customs Union.

The volume of the production items for which it is required the following permissive documents of Rospotrebnadzor is reduced nearly ten times in comparison with the list of goods for which it is necessary to draw up the SEC and (or) the Certificate of State Registration of the RF.

In the cases that the production went through the sanitary supervision on the base of the Russian Sanitary Rules and in the present it needs drawing up the sanitary permissive document of the Rospotrebnadzor in accordance with the requirements of the legislation of the CU, bet nevertheless the customs inspection requires the document of proof, but also it is necessary to apply to Rospotrebnadzor.

In such situations you will receive the drawn up the Exemption Letter of Rospotrebnadzor. But the information, which it usually comprises, is of the general legislative character (it can be read in the laws of the CU). That is why the consultants recommend draw up the Expert Conclusion of Rospotrebnadzor in such cases.

The permissive documents of Rospotrebnadzor were issued till the end of 2012 for the production that in accordance with the national legislation required its inclusion into the State Registry before its start of realization on the territory of the RF.

The permissive documents of Rospotrebnadzor drawn up on the blank of the Certificate of State Registration of the RF will be valid on the territory of Russia till the end of the year.

Such a document is drawn up from 1 July 2010 and is called the Certificate of State Registration of the CU. On which it is required to draw up the given permissive documents. The above-mentioned article describes it.

As the Certificate of State Registration of the CU replaced two earlier existing Russian documents proving the sanitary safety of production and duplicating each other. Earlier entrepreneurs had to go through the same procedure of proving conformity of production to sanitary requirements of the Russian legislation twice. The Certificate of the CU replaced the Sanitary-Epidemiologic Conclusion and the Certificate of State Registration of the RF.

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