There has been a flurry of activity on the development of International Standards to support accreditation and, in particular, auditor competence within certification / registrar bodies. A summary of the latest positions are given below:
ISO/IEC 17011
This International Standard specifies the general requirements for accreditation bodies assessing and accrediting conformity assessment bodies (CABs or certification / registrar bodies). It is, also, appropriate as a requirements document for the peer evaluation process for mutual recognition arrangements between accreditation bodies.
The ballot on the Committee Draft 2 (CD) ISO/IEC 17011, setting the general requirements for accreditation bodies, closed in March 2016 and the draft was approved with 82% of positive votes from CASCO members. The Working Group has met from 31 May to 2 June 2016 to address the comments on CD2 and moved the document to the Draft International Standard (DIS) stage.
ISO/IEC 17021-2
The DIS on ISO/IEC 17021-2, which 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.
The DIS ballot is available until 5 August 2016 with the comments being reviewed by the Working Group at their second meeting from 28-30 September 2016.
ISO/IEC 17021-3
Another competence document is undergoing revision of the specific competence requirements for personnel involved in the certification process for quality management systems (QMS).
The DIS ballot on ISO/IEC 17021-3, opens from 16 July until 11 October 2016.
ISO/IEC TS 17021-9
New auditor competence requirements for ISO/DIS 37001, anti-bribery management systems is under-way. The first Working Group meeting in April 2016 developed a robust draft, which resulted in CASCO launching a Draft Technical Specification (DTS) ballot until 13 July 2016. Depending on the number of comments, they will be addressed electronically and the document will go to publication. The publication dates of the two documents, ISO/DIS 37001 and ISO/IEC TS 17021-9 will be aligned.
ISO/IEC TS 17021-10
The Working Group tasked with developing the competence requirements for auditing and certification of occupational health and safety management systems met in April 2016 and produced a Working Draft (WD) which opened for a Working Group consultation until 27 July 2016. The ballot results and the comments on the WD will be addressed at the next Working Group meeting later in September 2016.