Governance
Technical Committee
The body that reviews our impartiality, approves our competence criteria and hears appeals — deliberately including people we do not employ.
Remit
What the committee is responsible for
Six functions, each of which would otherwise sit with the people whose commercial interests they constrain.
Impartiality oversight
Reviews the register of identified impartiality threats, the significance evaluation applied to each, and whether the controls in place actually reduce them to an acceptable level.
Auditor competence
Approves the competence criteria for each technical sector, reviews auditor qualification records, and considers witnessed-audit outcomes when competence is in question.
Scope extension
Evaluates whether GMSCPL holds the technical competence to certify in a new standard or sector before that scope is offered commercially.
Certification decision review
Reviews contested and borderline certification decisions, and any case where the audit team and the decision-maker disagree.
Appeals
Hears appeals against certification decisions, so that the appeal is never judged by the function that made the original decision.
Scheme rule interpretation
Determines how scheme-specific rules — IATF, FSSC and others — are applied consistently across audits and audit teams.
Composition and independence
ISO/IEC 17021-1 requires a certification body to have a mechanism for safeguarding impartiality that involves a balance of interests, with no single interest predominating. Our technical committee is that mechanism.
- Members independent of GMSCPL management, including an independent chair
- Technical experts covering the standards and sectors within our certification scope
- Representation of the interests of certified clients
- Representation of the interests of users of certification — customers, purchasers and regulators
- GMSCPL technical function, present but not able to determine outcomes alone
How the committee operates
- Meets at defined intervals, and additionally whenever an impartiality matter or appeal requires it.
- Receives the impartiality risk register, complaint and appeal summaries, and auditor competence reports as standing inputs.
- Records decisions and the reasoning behind them; those records are examined during accreditation assessment.
- Members declare any interest in a matter under consideration and withdraw from that item.
- Outputs feed into GMSCPL management review as a mandatory input.
Raising a matter with the committee
Appeals against a certification decision and complaints concerning impartiality are referred to the committee as a matter of process — you do not need to request it.
Members
Committee members
Placeholder entries — verified members will be published here before launch.
Head — Technical & Accreditation
Head of Technical & Accreditation
Owns conformity to ISO/IEC 17021-1, accreditation body liaison, scheme rules and technical scope extension. TODO: replace with verified name and biography.
- TODO: technical qualifications
Chair — Impartiality Committee
Chair, Impartiality Committee
Independent of GMSCPL management. Chairs the committee that reviews impartiality risk, appeals and the balance of interests represented in our governance. TODO: replace with verified name.
- Independent member
Next step
Ready to get certified?
Talk to our certification specialists. We will scope it honestly, show you the audit-day calculation, and tell you if the timeline you need is not realistic.