ISO Certification – Management of Impartiality
ISO Certification - Management of Impartiality
ISO Certification procedures shall be undertaken impartially.
AARC-360 is responsible for maintaining its impartiality with respect to its assessment activities and shall not allow commercial, financial or other pressures to compromise impartiality. All members of the assessment team attest to their impartiality.
Top management commitment
- Process to identify, analyze, evaluate, treat, monitor, and document the risks related to conflict of interests (e.g. arising from its relationships on an ongoing basis).
- Identified threats to impartiality shall be document and AARC-360 shall demonstrate how it eliminates or minimizes such threats and document any residual risk.
- When a relationship poses an unacceptable threat to impartiality (e.g., a wholly owned subsidiary of AARC-360 requesting certification from its parent), then certification shall not be provided.
- Top management shall review any residual risk to determine if it is within the level of acceptable risk.
- The risk assessment process shall include identification of and consultation with appropriate interested parties to advise on matters affecting impartiality including openness and public perception.
- A certification body shall not certify another certification body for its quality management system.
- The certification body and any part of the same legal entity and any entity under the organizational control of the certification body [see 9.5.1.2, bullet b] shall not offer or provide management system consultancy.
- Exchange of information (e.g. explanation of findings or clarification of requirements) between the certification body and its clients is allowed.
- AARC-360 and any part of the same legal entity and any entity under the organizational control of the certification body shall not offer or provide internal audits to its certified clients.
Management system consultancy
“participation in establishing, implementing or maintaining a MS”.
Examples: Preparing or producing manuals or procedures; giving specific advice, instructions or solutions towards development/implementation of a MS.
Arranging training and participating as a trainer is not considered consultancy, provided that itis confined to the provision of generic information; i.e., the trainer should not provide client-specific solutions.
The provision of generic information, but not client specific solutions for the improvement of processes or systems, is not considered to be consultancy.
Examples:
- Explaining certification criteria;
- Identifying improvement opportunities;
- Explaining associated theories, methodologies, techniques or tools;
- Sharing non-confidential information on related best practices;
- Other management aspects that are not covered by the MS being audited.
Where a client has received management systems consultancy from a body that has a relationship with a certification body, this is a significant threat to impartiality.
The certification body shall not outsource audits to a management system consultancy organization, as this poses an unacceptable threat to the impartiality of the certification body.