Conclusion..
Hi all, and thank's for your replys so far.
We are actually trying this now, and have evaluated the results so far as follows:
First of all, our intention was to provide the information ahead of the audit, to enable people to prepare for it. Some people (Not the ones being subjected to the audit, mind you) reacted in a negatuive way at first, saying that it was "nothing but a way to reduce the number of findings"... Which it is not, of course. To me an audit is a tool that we use to achieve improvement. If people "fix" things before the audit: Good. That's what we wanted in the first place, right?
There is also the matter of trust: No matter how hard we try to project a positive image, lots of people still regard audits as a kind of police activity. That hampers improvement. We think that this will make people feel that they are given a fair chance.
We are quite certain that prepared auditees will lead to better audits. We have no interest in catching people with their pants down. If they find a problem they can't fix in time for the audit, we are able to discuss it in a constructive way.
All things considered, the results are very encouraging so far.
As for the courses, I think barb summed things up very nicely. We sometimes do send peolple to audit courses for such reasons. (There are of course other ways to achieve the same results).
/Claes