"Do's" and "Don'ts" of auditing a former employer

J
#11
A lot of good insight here.
To me I tend to agree with those who say it should be avoided if possible.

One fact that can come into play is how much distance there is between the employment and the audit. And this distance can be measured in time or in Management change.
Timewise, a two year gap means that the auditor will likely see a lot of people (friend/foe?) and systems (good/bad?) that he was personally involved with. However If the gap is more like 15 years things have likely changed significantly.
Management wise, if the company has changed hands, or been through some kind of managerial shake-up, auditing an "old employer" might be little or no different than auditing any other company.

Peace
James
 
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Paul Simpson

Trusted Information Resource
#12
To me it would be a conflict of interest, plain and simple. Others may feel comfortable doing so. I wouldn't.

I took the same stance when I was doing implementations back in the 1990's - I wouldn't recommend a specific registrar. I would give clients a spreadsheet and I would name about 5 to 10 registrars for them to investigate and refer them to the old ASQ (or was it Quality Magazine?) yearly registrar listing. I wanted no smell of any type of conflict of interest.
Thanks, Marc. I appreciate the principled stance. I understood the potential for conflict of interest at the time (both examples I gave) and can say with hand on heart that they got a fair assessment in each case.

AB rules are that the CB has to manage any potential impartiality / conflicts. Their suggestion is that a minimum separation of 2 years should be applied but that the CB will assess the risks.

Close links between consultants and CBs is another potential source of conflict of interest and has provoked a lot of investigation and discussion with many CBs having a 'tame' list of consultants (and vice versa) - IMHO it stinks.
 

John Broomfield

Staff member
Super Moderator
#13
Thanks, Marc. I appreciate the principled stance. I understood the potential for conflict of interest at the time (both examples I gave) and can say with hand on heart that they got a fair assessment in each case.

AB rules are that the CB has to manage any potential impartiality / conflicts. Their suggestion is that a minimum separation of 2 years should be applied but that the CB will assess the risks.

Close links between consultants and CBs is another potential source of conflict of interest and has provoked a lot of investigation and discussion with many CBs having a 'tame' list of consultants (and vice versa) - IMHO it stinks.
BorissS,

I agree. No registars recommending consultants and no consultants recommending registrars.

As consultants we design and recommend selection criteria per clause 7.4.1.

Safeguarding the independence of certificates of conformity should also mean that no part of the system depends on the issuer for its conformity. This means no advice and no in-house training by the issuers of the certificates.

Trouble is many purchasing processes do not bother even checking the scope of certification!

John
 
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