Purpose
Mission and values
The work of accreditation is narrow and exacting. It asks whether a named body is competent, impartial and consistently operated for a defined set of activities, and it records the answer in a form that another person can read.
Purpose
AKZERT exists to treat that question with care. The purpose is not to promote conformity assessment as a market, and it is not to stand in for the reports and certificates that laboratories, inspection bodies and certification bodies issue themselves.
A purpose of this kind is fulfilled by method: a clear scope, competent assessment, a decision taken separately from the assessment, and publication of the outcome when there is an outcome to publish. Explanatory text on this site describes that method. It does not complete it.
The three principles
- Independence
- Judgement is formed by the people charged with it, on the evidence of the matter, and is protected from direction by the body under consideration or by an interest in the result.
- Impartiality
- Conflicts are identified and dealt with so that they do not determine the outcome. Impartiality is an arrangement, not only an intention. It includes the structure of decisions and the choice of people.
- Integrity
- The public record matches the decision. What has not been verified is not stated. A document that has not been approved is marked as unpublished rather than drafted to look official.
How the principles govern publication
Integrity, applied to a website, is a rule about evidence. A statistic, a list of staff, a testimonial, a membership or a count of accredited bodies will appear only when it can be checked. The absence of those items is deliberate.
The same rule applies to the directory. An empty directory is a true statement about publication. It will be filled when records have been verified, and not before.
Questions
Are the principles a published policy?
They are the organisation’s stated principles on this site. A formal impartiality policy, with responsibilities and records, will be a document in the document centre once it has been approved. Until then the policy page is a labelled placeholder.
Do the principles bind applicants today?
Conditions that bind an applicant belong in an approved requirements document. The principles describe how AKZERT intends the work to be conducted. They are not a contract and they set no fee.