Are You Gambling with Your Business?

One strategy businesses are using to rapidly grow their business is to gain ISO certification in management, environmental, health and safety or information security.

The number of companies seeking ISO certification is accelerating quickly; the benefits can be huge once you are certified. It makes a huge difference when pitching for business; their success rate is much higher than those without the certificate. Those organisations that have invested in ISO certification, now have a major advantage over their competitors. A position most businesses would envy.

But there is one problem with the ISO certification industry. It’s not regulated.

Anyone can set themselves up as a certification body, audit customers and issue certificates & logos.

Just to be clear not all certification bodies are equal. There are either ‘accredited certifying bodies’ or unaccredited companies. Accredited bodies have been checked out, tested and are monitored by UKAS. UKAS are appointed by HM Government to regulate accredited certifying bodies.

An increasing number of organisations who ask to see your certificate will only accept a certificate issued by a UKAS accredited company. If that’s the case, the certificate issued by your unaccredited certifying body will be worthless.

Each day we receive calls from companies who’ve found out that their ISO certificates were rejected because they were not properly accredited by the Government backed United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS). We’re also asked to ‘confirm’ that certificates are valid.

This is what the UKAS website https://www.ukas.com/about/about-accreditation/ says about accreditation.

“Accreditation is the formal recognition that an organisation is competent to perform specific processes, activities, or tasks (which are detailed in a scope of accreditation) in a reliable credible and accurate manner.  The provision of accreditation must:

• be objective, transparent and effective;
• use highly professional competent assessors and technical experts in all relevant fields;
• use assessors (and subcontractors) that are reliable, ethical and competent in both accreditation processes and the relevant technical fields.

Accreditation delivers confidence in certificates and conformity statements. It underpins the quality of results by ensuring their traceability, comparability, validity and commutability.”

Businesses need to be aware that there is a difference. We strongly recommend that you check that you are being audited by a UKAS accredited certification body.

But how do you know? UKAS has an excellent webpage and search function at  https://www.ukas.com/search-accredited-organisations/ so that you can check.

Given that ISO certificates cover serious matters – such as quality and safety of work – councils, large companies and other authorities risk selecting unfit suppliers, and significant repercussions.

As a local Certification Body, we’d like to help spread the word on the importance of UKAS accredited certification to create a win-win situation for both buyers and suppliers.

Rob Fenn, CEO at The British Assessment Bureau

If you’d like more information about all things ISO, then give us a call free on 0800 404 7007; visit www.british-assessment.co.uk and follow us on Twitter @TheBABOfficial