Obviously, my perspective in this subject is biased based on my position as a representative of the conformity assessment body community.
Very few people reading this thread are at the forefront of the conformity assessment sector, but let me share an excerpt of a draft document being discussed, concerning a potential aerospace auditor competence validation process:
So, please be aware that some highly regulated sectors are continually enhancing the CB auditor competence evaluation process, exactly to minimize the chances of having ineffective auditors and audits in the scheme.
While the CB is the primary responsible for ensuring auditor competence, we have to rely (also) on feedback by the organizations interacting with the auditors and if the registrants are unwilling to provide honest feedback about auditor?s performance, the whole system suffers.
Just like a police department will be unable to act if one of their officers is corrupt, but nobody ever brings the information forward, for fear of retaliation. Just like a school district will be unable to discipline an unethical teacher, if feedback is never provided by pupils and/or parents.
WHOA!
Let's distinguish between
corrupt (knowingly doing something unethical or illegal) and merely incompetent or lazy (
blind gopher.) In the former, the individual knows what is the correct thing, but for a consideration (money, love, friendship, hatred) chooses to do something apart from the right thing.
Those we term blind gophers are either incompetent or lazy. I think I can tell the difference between incompetent or lazy, but I may be fooling myself. (I see a difference in a cop who takes bribes to let dope deals happen and a cop who takes a nap in his squad because he was up all night, partying.) As far as unethical teachers, I have an hour-long keynote and a three hour seminar I deliver on recognizing and dealing with teachers who are unethical (mean, venal, biased, abusive) and those who are "challenged" (unknowledgeable, lazy, unempathetic.) The unethical need to be scrubbed from the system; the challenged need to be trained or redirected. I don't use the term "retrained" simply because I feel any previous "training" didn't deserve to be called training.
Corruption, on the other hand, can be glaring or it can be VERY subtle. the smarter the perpetrator, the more subtle and insidious the corrupt act.
Given only those two characters (corrupt and blind gopher) to consider, the 3rd party
system may be "corrupted," but it is not corrupt in and of itself. Think of the difference between a single nonconformance in an otherwise good system and a systemic nonconformance which is due to an intent by the top management to put lipstick on the pig by selecting known "easy auditors" (blind gophers) or by actually bribing the on-site auditor.
I don't think anyone here believes the entire 3rd party system is corrupt, but most of us believe there are both kinds of individual auditors (corrupt and blind gopher.) The question really should be: "Is it in the best interest of organizations under audit to involve top management in complaining to 3rd party management about blind gophers?" If yes, how does the potential of a delayed certificate or changing CBs (additional expense) factor in to the decision?
(It seems obvious to me top management is not going to complain about a corrupt auditor it is bribing (unless he doesn't stay bribed
)
There is one other possibility to raise (I've never seen one myself) - the auditor (2nd or 3rd party) who extorts a bribe by saying to a stressed manager, "This system won't pass unless I get a "cash bonus." Has anyone EVER encountered one? No names, please.
