Message from the Managing Director

There is an uncomfortable fact at the centre of this industry, and it is better said out loud than left for a client to discover: a certification body is paid by the organisation it audits. Every incentive in that arrangement points the wrong way. The client wants a certificate. We want the client. Nobody in the room is naturally incentivised to raise a major nonconformity.

Every control that governs how we operate exists to counteract that. The certification decision is made by someone who did not conduct the audit. Audit duration is calculated by a published rule rather than negotiated. Impartiality risk is reviewed by a committee that includes people I do not employ. We are prohibited from consulting for an organisation we certify, and we apply that prohibition strictly rather than creatively.

Why this matters commercially, not just ethically

It would be easy to present this as principle alone. It is also straightforward commercial logic. Our certificates are worth something only for as long as the organisations relying on them — your customers, your regulators, the buyer evaluating your tender — find that they hold up under scrutiny. A certificate issued after a soft audit does not fail immediately. It fails eighteen months later, at a customer audit, in front of the client who paid us for it.

That is why we will occasionally tell a prospective client things they did not want to hear: that their scope is wrong, that their timeline is not achievable, that they need a GFSI-recognised scheme rather than the one they asked for, or that we do not hold the technical competence for their sector and they should go elsewhere. We lose work that way. We keep the thing that makes the work worth doing.

What you should expect from us

• A quotation that shows the audit-day calculation, so you can see why the number is what it is.
• An assessor whose technical background in your sector we will tell you about before the audit.
• Findings written factually, traceable to a requirement, supported by evidence you can examine.
• A clear statement of what we will not do, including that we cannot tell you how to fix a nonconformity.
• An honest answer when the honest answer costs us the engagement.

And what we ask of you

Audit us back. Ask which accreditation body assesses us and verify it with them directly rather than from this website. Ask what technical sector our accreditation covers. Ask to see the audit-day calculation. Ask about the background of the assessor assigned to you. A certification body that treats those questions as intrusive has already answered them.

We would rather compete in a market where buyers can tell the difference. That only happens if buyers ask.