IAF will prohibit CB's to issue non accredited certificates

According to an IAF Resolution, CB's will be prohibited from issuing non-accredited certificates for scopes they have accreditation.

Some accredited CB's have been caught in the practice of issuing non-accredited certificates for scopes they were totally accredited for. Some people might not understand why a CB would do that, but, it is very simple: issuing a non-accredited certificate makes that certification program, including it's audits outside of the accreditation body scrutiny. So, a CB could low ball the number of audit-days, send a non-competent audit team, miss surveillance audits, etc....and that certificate could not be scrutinized by the AB. As many people still don't understand what accreditation is and how to verify if a certificate is properly accredited, such despicable practice is not readily flagged.

Hopefully, the IAF resolution might change the state of deception, but, it is not clear how an AB would identify such practice, as, mentioned above, any non-accredited certification program is outside the jurisdiction of the AB and those records would be outside of the scope of the AB audit of the CB. Someone would have to bring the existence of the non-accredited certificate to the AB's personnel, as a "whistle blower". Not very likely.....

 

Yes, not very likely indeed...

Also, I imagine that there are cases where the CB was at some point accredited, and later narrowed their scope - unbeknownst to the certified clients who would simply continue to maintain their certification.

This is interesting to me, as it raises question of who should be responsible for oversight. Should it be bottom-up (where the onus is on manufacturers to continually check the accreditation status of their CBs), or top-down (where the AB is responsible to ensure that CBs they accredit are staying within the scope of what they are accredited for)....

 

Sidney can you give an example without mentioning the name of the CB?

 

How, do you suggest, I do that? It did not take me long to find online an ISO 9001 certificate issued by a well known registrar with no accreditation logo on it; a sign that it is NOT accredited. The problem is OBVIOUSLY real; otherwise the IAF would not bother with a resolution.

 

That is a known risk to the CB not to the client. In the event of a witness audit, the CB could get a major NC against the standard (I do not recall the number) to which they are audited against and if they continue to do this practice their certificate will be suspended, I suppose.

 

Until the IAF resolution becomes effective, ANY non-accredited certification program is out of bounds for an AB audit of the CB. If the certificate and the certification program are issued outside of the accredited process, the AB will not have access to those records.

 

Major CB's in there quotations charge a separate fee for the AB logo use on the issued certificate, and say that this charge is directly towards AB fee payable by the CB. Now the onus is on the client. Is this the practice that the AB approve, when they let a CB to operate with there logo ?

 

In the certification market, it is the CB who has the bigger name and any client knows and trusts the CB more than having much to do with the AB. Certification has been and always will be a business requirement, rather than a company requirement. So, when the customer asks nothing more than a certification from his supplier, or even asks certification from any recognized CB, the scope and requirement of an AB is never apparent.
Hence a CB must not quote a fee for the use of AB logo, and give scope to the client for negotiation, as invariably the audit cost part will also be touched when a customer does not need the AB logo. Once accredited, the CB remains accredited until he loses the accreditation from the AB, and the CB must be bound to issue only certificates that carry AB logo, and nothing less.

 

I have seen quotes by CB's where the "option" for the client to request an accredited certificate is buried in the fine print. Accredited CB's should not make an accredited certificate as an "option". Once the non-accredited option is exercised, there is no external oversight. Accredited CB's that don't make it's default delivery an accredited certificate are a disgrace to the certification sector that wants this process to be value added. Accredited CB's that willingly and actively promote non-accredited certificates are just giving ammunition to the unaccredited and pseudo-accredited CB's.

Soma, that is not correct. So much so that the IAF passed the resolution in question. If accredited CB's were only issuing accredited certificates, the IAF resolution would not need to exist, isn't it?

Someone at the IAF decided to "crack down" on this scam. the problem is: not easy to police it, from the AB's perspective, as I already explained.

 

Jennifer, once the certification scheme is done outside of the accredited process, all bets are off. The CB can do ANYTHING without an external scrutiny. You as the auditor might think you are following the same process, but who ensures the audit days are as per minimum estimates? Who ensures the audit team has the necessary competence? Who ensures the maximum interval in between audits is being respected?

The issue goes WELL beyond the certification having an accreditation mark. As I keep repeating, once an unaccredited route is taken, the CB does whatever they want without the risk of being caught cheating.

If the practice was not detrimental to the integrity of the accredited certification process, it would not be a subject of an IAF resolution, don't you think?

Shameful practice of deceit. And the culprits should be exposed for the deception.