Can anyone help me please?
I have been told that the problem of "vested interest" has been addressed.
e.g. An accreditation company gains revenue by accrediting businesses.
If they then subsequently remove accreditation revenue is lost.

It appears that the new approach is to set periods during which NCs have to be closed, if they aren't accreditation automatically ceases.

As to who ensures that NCs are raised and dealt with in the first place is a question to which, as yet, I haven't had an answer.

Any help would be very much appreciated.
Bernard

Can anyone help on this?

Thanks Coury,

I haven't gained any further info myself so help will be appreciated.

Bernard

Bernard

Hi, are we talking accreditation or certification here?

If we are talking about certification to ISO 9001, it is done by bodies who are themselves accredited - in the UK this is done by UKAS.

A company gets certificated by a certification body (CB) such as NQA, BSI, LRQA etc (there are lots of these around to choose from). Now you may ask what makes their certificate valid - that's where UKAS come in and 'police' the CB's. CB's are now assessed against ISO 17021 which mandates the management systems to be employed by the CB (a bit like ISO 9001) and when they are happy with the practices employed by the CB they are allowed to use the 'crown and tick' logo next to their own.

Accreditation bodies like UKAS (in the UK) and ANAB (in the USA) then come under the banner of the International Accreditation Forum (IAF) who try to ensure similar standards are applied across the world.

For those who know this process, please forgive the simplification!

Colin,

This explaination is exactly what I was after.

Many thanks,
Bernard