ISO Accreditation & Assessment

Choosing An Assessing Body

There are approximately 70 accredited assessing bodies (sometimes called certification bodies) in the UK. Some of these are specialists for specific industries. The UK assessment market is dominated by 6 large organisations:

BSI, LRQA, NQA, BVQI, SGS Yarsley, DNV

What is Accreditation?

This is the process by which assessing bodies are themselves approved. This is carried out by a nationally appointed organisation and to an internationally agreed standard. The UK accreditation organisation for ISO9001:2000 and ISO14001 assessing bodies is UKAS (United Kingdom Assessment Services). They also accredited test and calibration laboratories within the UK.

How do I Contact A Suitable Assessment Body?

Each assessment body is approved to carry out assessment work in a particular business sector or several sectors. These sectors are listed in their 'scope' of accreditation.

Some assessment bodies are specialists and only address one sector, whilst others are generalists and address all or most sectors.

The six listed opposite are generalists. All assessing bodies and their scopes of accreditation are listed on the UKAS web site: www.UKAS.org.uk.

See also our list of useful web resources.

Unaccredited Assessment

There is no law in the UK which prevents anybody offering (un-accredited) certification to quality standards. Companies offering all-in consultancy and certification are not accredited by UKAS as one of their requirements is that the assessment is independent from consultancy.

Companies that are assessed and certified by accredited assessment bodies can display the UKAS logo which is a square box with a tick in it and a crown on top. The 'crown and tick' logo gives prospective purchasers assurance that you have an independently assessed and certified management system.