Morality of Certification

Issuance of Certificates against guidance Standards

The standards writers around the world especially in the family of ISO and IEC, if not other international standards setting bodies, are quite clear when they sit down to write a standard – is it meant for evaluation and certification or is it meant to guide and recommend best practices ?

Accordingly, standards like the ever popular ISO 9001, are developed as normative documents or requirement standards meaning thereby that one needs to meet all the requirements prescribed therein to be certified. These typically use expression “shall” in prescribing requirements.

However, Certification seems to have become a lucrative business which has led to mushrooming of certification bodies all around. There is not even a reasonable count of how many such bodies operate in India since they are unregulated and not required to even register at any one place.

The only means of authenticating a certification body, especially if it is private, is accreditation under the international system of accreditation based on ISO standards operated under the aegis of the International Accreditation Forum (IAF), a world association of accreditation bodies. The National Accreditation Board for Certification Bodies (NABCB) is the member body from India in IAF.

This system however is purely voluntary – therefore there is no obligation for a certification body to either get accredited at all or get accredited under the IAF system

This has led to fierce competition in the market and many certification bodies have come up outside the IAF system issuing what can be called “unauthentic” certifications, even if these may be legal.

There is widespread ignorance about accreditation in the industry – both manufacturing and service like educational institutions or healthcare – as well as among other stakeholders like government, procurement agencies etc. and they easily fall prey to such certificates.

Another less talked about downside of the above situation of intense competition in the market is the desire of certification bodies to come up with newer certifications to generate more business – in which they frequently breach the otherwise well understood concept of certification only against requirement standards.

IAF is well aware of this problem and has in its own way tried to address it by adopting resolutions at various times. Sometimes ISO has joined hands as in case of ISO 26000 for Social responsibility.

IAF adopted the following resolution in 2010:

IAF Resolution 2010-10 – (Agenda Item 7) IAF/ISO Joint Communiqué on Certification to ISO 26000

The General Assembly, acting on the recommendation of the Technical Committee, resolved that there will not be any accredited certification to ISO 26000 (publication date 1st November 2010).

ISO 26000 explicitly states that it is not intended or appropriate for certification, and any certification would be a misuse of the standard.

Therefore, Certification Bodies are strongly urged not to promote or provide certification to ISO 26000 and Accreditation Bodies and Certification Bodies are requested to report any misuse or need for certification, to the ISO Central Secretariat.

IAF acted again on the use of ISO 31000 on Risk Management, another guidance standard, for certification by adopting the following resolution in 2017:

IAF Resolution 2017-20 – (Agenda Item 9) Certification to ISO 31000:2009, Risk management – Principles and guidelines

The General Assembly, acting on the recommendation of the Technical Committee, resolved that there will not be any accredited certification to ISO 31000:2009, Risk management – Principles and guidelines (publication date 13 November 2009). ISO 31000 explicitly states that it is not intended or appropriate for certification, and any certification would be a misuse of the standard.

Therefore CABs are strongly urged not to promote or provide certification to ISO 31000 and ABs and CABs are requested to report any misuse or need for certification to the ISO Secretariat.

Its unfortunate that despite the above resolution, some of the internationally well known certification bodies, who should know better and be more responsible, continue to offer certification to ISO 31000.

Recognizing the problem is not confined to limited number of standards, IAF went a step further and adopted a general resolution in October, 2019 as follows:

IAF Resolution 2019-15 – (Agenda Item 9) Accredited Certification Only Issued Against Normative Documents That Contain Requirements

The General Assembly, acting on the recommendation of the Technical Committee, resolved that accredited certification shall only be issued against documents/standards that contain requirements.

One can argue that IAF could do more by stipulating that certification bodies under its umbrella should not undertake such certification which misleads stakeholders and complicates an already confused and vitiated market.

The problem with these IAF resolutions is that since only accreditation bodies are members of IAF, only they are bound to follow these resolutions. They would therefore not offer any accreditation for certification to such guidance standards.

The certification bodies are not members of IAF and hence not obliged to follow these resolutions. However such certifications would be unaccredited and therefore under no oversight. Which would make them unauthentic.

What are the Solutions?

• ISO could, recognizing market demand for such certifications, develop corresponding requirement standards. Or

• nationally, standards bodies could develop normative documents where there is demand for such certifications e.g. we did develop IndiaHACCP standard with support from FSSAI in QCI – I was involved in it Or

• even CBs could develop a clear requirement document or check list and certify against that – not claiming certification to ISO 10002 or ISO 31000 but saying that their document is based on these standards.

Failing above all :

India is facing the brunt of the problem of unethical certification and regulation of conformity assessment seems to be the only remedy to bring discipline in the market.

Sample of Unauthentic Certificate issued :

PS: The certificates attached are illustrative – you can find several if you search on the net!!!

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