About TQC Accreditation
An autonomous body responsible for the accreditation of conformity assessment bodies in the fields of certification and inspection.
Who we are
TQC Accreditation is an independent accreditation body based in Berlin. Our sole activity is the assessment and accreditation of conformity assessment bodies — the organisations that certify management systems, inspect products and installations, and certify the competence of individuals.
We are not a certification body. We do not certify companies, we do not sell consultancy, and we do not train the bodies we assess. That separation is not a marketing position; it is the condition on which an accreditation body can function at all. An accreditation body that also competes with, advises or trains its applicants cannot make an impartial decision about them.
How we operate
Our assessment programme follows the principles set out in ISO/IEC 17011, the international standard for bodies that accredit conformity assessment bodies. In practice that means four things are structurally separated from one another:
- Assessment — carried out by a team with demonstrated technical competence in the scope being assessed.
- Decision — taken by people who did not perform the assessment and who have no commercial relationship with the applicant.
- Appeal — heard by a route that does not pass back through the people who made the original decision.
- Complaint — handled on a documented process, with the outcome recorded whether or not it favours us.
Impartiality
We maintain a documented analysis of the relationships that could threaten our impartiality, and we review it. Assessors declare any prior involvement with an applicant, and are removed from assessments where a conflict exists. Fee income from a single accredited body is monitored so that no one client becomes commercially decisive for us.
If you believe a TQC decision has been improperly influenced, we would rather hear it than not. Write to info@tqcaccreditation.org and mark it for the attention of the impartiality committee.
Confidentiality
Assessment brings us into contact with our applicants’ client files, audit reports and commercial information. That material is treated as confidential and is not disclosed outside the assessment team and decision panel, except where disclosure is required by law or where the information is already public through the register.
The register itself is deliberately limited to what a third party legitimately needs in order to rely on a certificate: the body, the scope, the validity dates and the status. Nothing else is published.
What we ask of accredited bodies
Accreditation is a continuing obligation, not an award. An accredited body is required to notify us of significant changes — ownership, key personnel, scope, the location of its decision-making — to accept surveillance and witness assessments, to use the accreditation mark only as permitted, and to withdraw claims of accreditation immediately if accreditation lapses.
Where those obligations are not met, accreditation can be suspended or withdrawn, and the register is updated to say so.
