Why are ISO management system certifications at risk?
Numerous ISO management system certifications that are highly valued and
that have been earned by UK companies are at an increased risk of collapsing.
The auditors of Certification Bodies’ failure for attending the premises of
organizations in order to carry out re-certification audits of great essence,
in this period of coronavirus pandemic.
Numerous certifications are in high risk to expire, because of the
current lockdown scenarios going around, and it is highly likely it may
continue for a while now, in future.
Organizations affected may have to bear significant
amount of financial costs.
What does UKAS guidelines at current say?
UKAS guidelines at present, that is not changed since August 2016, has
stated that failure to take re certification assessment within allocated time
period of 6 months (of the issued certificate’s anniversary), there will be
suspension of the certificate and there will be necessity of new initial
assessment.
In order for restoration of certifications, organizations that have been
affected may have to bear financial expenses 3 times more than they anticipated
for their annual audit’s payment. Likewise, increased time and resources level
and also necessary for removal of any kind of reference to certifications from
their websites as well as other collaterals.
Only 3 ISO 9001, ISO 45001 and ISO 27001 out of 5 ISO management system
standards that they help organizations to gain, about 2500 UK Certifications
per month are in the verge of expiring because of stopped auditing activities.
Peter Rossi, InfoSaaS director, stated not to mind all other ISO
standards, and not to withstand audits’ backlogs whenever it was possible for
them to resume at scale.
Some organizations might take a decision to not be
re-audited
The figures for number of certifications given across all sorts of standards
aren’t published by ISO that stands for The International Organization for
Standard. But it has at current, published numbers for higher than 1.3 million
certifications internationally, across 12 standards, published in as ISO Survey
2018 that includes ISO Certifications such as ISO 9001, ISO 22000, ISO 14001,
ISO 27001, ISO 20000, ISO 22301, ISO 13485, ISO 39001, ISO 45001, ISO 28000,
ISO 50001 37001.
There are more than 870,000 certifications across the world for ISO 9001
only, which gives an indication that 6 months on from when lockdown commenced,
more than 70000 monthly are in the verge of expiring if surveillance audits are
stopped.
But the bitter truth amid present scenarios is the organizations might
just allow their ISO certification online to expire and not re-audit them. Any kinds
of de-prioritization like it, can result in the reduction in the standards for
purposes of security of the information, management of environment, health as
well as safety, and management of the quality. It is not considered to be a
good result for anyone. Rossi presented his views on it.
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