Does British Standard: 8458 encourage innovation?

Yes. British Standards encourage innovation by providing guidelines, specifications, and best practices that set a benchmark for quality and safety. These standards create a framework within which businesses can innovate and develop new products and services while ensuring they meet regulatory requirements and industry expectations.

BS 8458 is a code of practice and should not be quoted as if it were a specification. A code of practice contains recommendations and supporting guidance, where the recommendations relevant to a given user have to be met to support a claim of compliance. Users may also justify the substitution of any of the recommendations in a code of practice with practices of equivalent or better outcomes. Therefore innovative products can remain compliant with BS 8454.

This is one of the principles of standardisation, as per the standard for standards (BS 0:2021). BS 8458 must ensure it is:

f) not unduly restrictive (e.g. such as might result in stifling competition or impeding innovation; provisions should, as far as possible, be written in terms of performance);