The lead auditor is meant to decide when additional technical expertise is needed to plan the audit or to conduct the audit investigation.
If such expertise is needed to fulfill the audit objective then the lead auditor is obliged to make recommendations to the audit client for the audit to be feasible.
If such expertise is not forthcoming then the lead auditor advises the audit client that the audit objective cannot be fulfilled.
John, that might be the THEORY. In practice, though, it is a very different story. When it comes to third party auditing, most certification bodies want to maximize auditor's usage rates and deem each and every auditor "competent" to as many disciplines, schemes, standards, SIC codes, etc as possible. In the real world, audit team leaders get the assignment from the people responsible for scheduling the audits and run with it. They don't question if the audit team has the necessary competence to perform the audit or not. They just do it.
Realizing that auditor competence is a serious issue, ISO CASCO set about and is
developing a number of standards *to beef up the requirements for auditor competence determination for different disciplines.
But, as mentioned already, developing standards and not having effective enforcement is the same as NOT having standards.
Accreditation bodies, supposed to oversee the certification bodies as how they assess their staff competence, suffer from the same challenges:
They, themselves (the AB's) have a hard time ensuring their own staff, including the AB auditors are fully competent to assess the CB's. Just like in the CB world, AB's have a significant problem of consistency and personnel caliber. They have some extremely competent people as well as incompetent people in their ranks, despite the fact that ISO 17011 requires them to monitor and "assure" the competence of their personnel.
So, the competence determination and assurance challenge happens at all levels in the conformity assessment world.
*
ISO/IEC 17021 accredited Certification Bodies should be aware of developments in the ISO/IEC 17021 series of documents.
CBs should note that TS documents are Technical Specifications and not direct requirement documents, however the International Accreditation Forum (IAF) has adopted these and they therefore hold the same status as IAF Mandatory Guidance i.e. CBs must pay due cognisance to them within their accredited activities.
IAF has confirmed that the ISO/IEC TS 17021 documents are endorsed normative documents to be applied in conjunction with ISO/IEC 17021, and the deadline for implementation is two years after publication. This bulletin overviews the implementation requirements for the new TS documents.
ISO/IEC TS 17021-2
Competence requirements for auditing and certification of environmental management systems
This TS specifies additional competence requirements for personnel involved in the audit and certification process for Environmental Management Systems (EMS) and complements the existing requirements of ISO/IEC 17021.
This TS was published in August 2012 with a 2 year implementation set by IAF, therefore CBs should be taking account of it by August 2014.
At your next UKAS assessment, the assessment team will review your plans to implement this within your competence system.
ISO/IEC TS 17021-3
Competence requirements for auditing and certification of quality management systems
This TS complements the existing requirements of ISO/IEC 17021. It includes specific competence requirements for personnel involved in the certification process for quality management systems (QMS).
This TS was published in May 2013, again with a 2 year implementation set by IAF, therefore CBs should be taking account of it by May 2015.
At your next UKAS assessment, the assessment team will review your plans to implement this within your competence systems.
The following Technical Specification has also now been published:
ISO/IEC TS 17021-4: Competence requirements for auditing and certification of event sustainability management (October 2013)
ISO/IEC TS 17021-5: Competence requirements for auditing and certification of asset management systems (April 2014)
Draft Technical Specifications
For information, please note that two further TS documents in this series are currently being drafted:
ISO/IEC DTS 17021-6: Competence requirements for auditing and certification of business continuity management systems
ISO/IEC DTS 17021-7: Competence requirements for auditing and certification of RTS/road traffic safety management systems