Accredited registrars issuing non accredited certificates

[Sidney Vianna]

In the last 6 months or so, I have heard, at least twice, of cases when fully accredited registrars have alledgedly issued non accredited certificates to some of their clients. The primary reason for something like this is the fact that, by issuing non-accredited certificates, the registrar does not have to follow the rules in terms of minimum auditor days required for the audits, nor they need to assemble a competent team for the audit at hand.
By being an unaccredited assessment, all the records and activities associated with that certificate are not subject to the accreditation bodies scrutiny.
If this practice is indeed happening, it would be a disgrace, imo.

I am interested to know if anyone has seen this practice in the recent past. If concerned in posting information about this here, please PM or email me.

 

[Wes Bucey]

Non-accredited? Sounds like the kind of report a lot of consultants give an organization striving to be "compliant" without the full cost associated with registration.

As long as the paperwork is clear that it is "non-accredited" and the same "consultant" doesn't come back next year for an "accredited" registration, what's the harm?

I, for one, am a knowledgeable enough customer to read the difference between registration and "non-accredited." If the customer is so "clueless" as to believe he is hiring a "registered" supplier, maybe he gets what he pays for. To my knowledge, registration NEVER made one iota of difference in the quality of a product or service provided by a supplier.

 

[Sidney Vianna]

As long as the paperwork is clear that it is "non-accredited" and the same "consultant" doesn't come back next year for an "accredited" registration, what's the harm?

Wes, I appreciate your point of view. The harm is that the primary users of a management system certificate are not the certified organizations, but their customers and other stakeholders, who might be misguided and unaware of the accreditation issue.
Nevertheless, when I posted this question I was looking for possible cases of such occurrence. There are many other threads that deal with the value (if any) of registration. May I ask you a favor not to make this thread one more debating that issue?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Bobh@pte]

I have never heard of any cases of this. But I have to ask;
What is the benefit to the company Who obtains such a cert?

 

[Sidney Vianna]

Cheaper, faster and ......

They pay less for the certificate because the auditor days can be reduced. They can have any auditor as their auditor, even if s/he is not qualified/competent for the audit at hand. For those organizations that are only interested on getting the "certificate on the wall" and do not have customers educated well enough to spot an accredited versus a non accredited certificate, this might be appealing.

 

[Bobh@pte]

Seems to me like the people who "pay" for an online degree from an
unaccredited college. I mean, the rest of us pay our dues by sitting
in the classroom 3 or 4 hours at a time, two to three days a week.
My point is: Why would those of us who have been accredited even
consider a supplier who has taken the backdoor? I just don't see how
get away with this???

 

[JRKH]

Interem Certificate

I'm not sure if this fits your question, but when our small registrar sold to a larger one there were questions about the validity of our cert under RAB. Our origional registrar was certified under a different body. Our new registrar issued us a non-RAB accredited cert which required fewer audit hours. Next year when our origiaonal 3 year term is up they will bring audit us to the RAB standard.

 

[Sidney Vianna]

Seems to me like the people who "pay" for an online degree from an
unaccredited college. I mean, the rest of us pay our dues by sitting
in the classroom 3 or 4 hours at a time, two to three days a week.
My point is: Why would those of us who have been accredited even
consider a supplier who has taken the backdoor? I just don't see how
get away with this???

Bob, I fully agree with your point of view, but I think you would be surprised to realize how many people are totally oblivious to the issue of accredited vs. non-accredited certificates. For those organizations that require their suppliers to be "certified" to ISO 9001, as a component of their supplier evaluation and monitoring process, they need to be better educated in order to scrutinize their supplier's certification. Far too often, the buyers who are in communication with the suppliers, are all too happy to receive a fancily crafted paper with the words ISO 9001 and some obscure logos on it. They do not pay close attention to the contents of the certificate, including scope, validity and coverage. They are not informed about the IAF recognized accreditation bodies. Sometimes, the acceptance of non-accredited certificates happen due to customer's ignorance. Sometimes, it might happen based on an informed decision. But I suspect that the former happens way more often than the latter.

 

[Wes Bucey]

I don't intend to hijack the thread with a screed on certification per se.

It seems to me the point you are making is that the registrar community needs to make a big marketing/education effort for the folks who are "demanding" ISO certificates of registration from suppliers to help them differentiate between "accredited" and "non-accredited" and what it MAY mean in terms of supplier qualifications.

There is also the subtle point that some folks paying for these non-accredited registrations may be as naive or more naive than the customers you worry about and they REALLY don't understand the difference between accredited and non-accredited. It seems to me the marketing/education effort needs to be aimed toward these folks, too.

In the end, this situation may be similar to organizations using pirated software:

1. some do it knowingly and hope to beat the "thought police"
2. some do it unknowingly and are stunned when they discover the facts
3. some do it knowingly because they tell themselves it is just "try before you buy" and they fully intend to buy a legal version if they like the illegal one.

Similarly, with registration, some may consider the "non-accredited" registration a "trial run" before spending big dollars for a real registration.

I don't intend to voice an opinion on the validity of these points of view, merely to observe those points of view exist.

 

[Sidney Vianna]

It seems to me the point you are making is that the registrar community needs to make a big marketing/education effort for the folks who are "demanding" ISO certificates of registration from suppliers to help them differentiate between "accredited" and "non-accredited" and what it MAY mean in terms of supplier qualifications.

There is also the subtle point that some folks paying for these non-accredited registrations may be as naive or more naive than the customers you worry about and they REALLY don't understand the difference between accredited and non-accredited. It seems to me the marketing/education effort needs to be aimed toward these folks, too.

Right on. And, I hear that ANAB will start to develop a marketing campaign to "educate" organizations on the value of accredidation.

The whole issue of accreditation is difficult to be grasped by the non-initiated. Check for example the article in the IAF website @ https://www.compad.com.au/cms/iaf/public/204 .
Even accreditation is being trivialized.