The new 17025 documents are putting more pressure on labs to have a decision rule and that is a good thing as there are lots of labs stating stuff is passed when actually given the barn door of an uncertainty they have it could well be undetermined.
Personally, I am in favour of this push for labs to consider compliance for most customers. In the pressure calibration world (at least in Australia) we have been required to assess instruments for compliance to a specification for many years, where the specification is provided by the customer (based on their usage, risk, etc) or a default specification is adopted based on the manufacturer's 12 month accuracy.
In my region, most instruments are sent for routine calibration to see if the instrument still performs within the original specification, and if not, ask that it be adjusted to do so - in this case, assessment of the instrument for compliance to a specification is the most important aspect for the general industrial customer. It can be dissapointing for us metrologists, who are usually focussed on minimising uncertainty, but this is a reality for many customers who may not understand uncertainty. Pass/fail is easily understood and metrologists are well placed to assess this. For digital pressure instruments, the arithmetic addition of uncertainty and error/correction at each point must be equal or less than the specification. We have carried over the same compliance rule in our electrical lab.
Unlike pressure labs, electrical labs in Australia have often historically not considered any compliance/decision rule and simply reported a measurement and uncertainty, which in some cases was disturbingly large, and inadequate for the test instrument. Poor labs were able to do this with little recourse, relying on the customer ignorance. With the emphasis on decision/compliance rules in 17025, these labs are now obliged to assess if their uncertainty is adequate during contract negotiation. This is an excellent outcome. Of course, there are still labs that ignore this with the "barn door uncertainty" and give a 100 ppm uncertainty to assess a 50 ppm accuracy specification, and say that it "passes", but I hope these are picked-up by our accreditation body over time.
Although it is ultimately the user's responsibility to contract a laboratory with a capability that suits their needs, it can be very hard to navigate or understand a scope of accreditation, and I think we also have a duty of care to make sure our capability is likely to be suitable.
Of course, for metrologists seeking calibration of their reference equipment, they understand uncertainty, errors, corrections, drift, etc, very well and can easily ask their reference lab to assess the instrument to lowest possible uncertainties, without adjustment or consideration for compliance to an accruacy specification, and this is permitted based on specific customer request within 17025.