What is accreditation?
Accreditation is an endorsement of a conformity assessment body's competence, credibility, independence and integrity in carrying out its conformity assessment activities.
The formal definition
ISO defines accreditation as “third-party attestation related to a conformity assessment body conveying formal demonstration of its competence to carry out specific conformity assessment tasks.”
Two words in that sentence do most of the work. Third-party means the attestation comes from somebody with no stake in the outcome. Specific means it is never general — a body is accredited to do named tasks, against named standards, in named fields, and its accreditation certificate says exactly which.
Accreditation is not certification
In everyday use the two words are treated as interchangeable. Within conformity assessment they mean quite different things, and the difference is the reason this organisation exists.
| Certification | Accreditation | |
|---|---|---|
| Attests to | A product, process, system or person | A body that attests to products, processes, systems or persons |
| Performed by | A certification body | An accreditation body |
| Answers | “Does this system meet ISO 9001?” | “Is this body competent to decide that?” |
| Typical standard | ISO 9001, ISO 14001, ISO 45001 | ISO/IEC 17021-1, ISO/IEC 17020, ISO/IEC 17024 |
A company holds a certificate. The body that issued it holds an accreditation. A company is never “accredited to ISO 9001” — that phrase, common as it is, describes something that does not exist.
What a conformity assessment body does
Conformity assessment bodies — CABs — provide certification and inspection services to organisations. The fields in which they most commonly operate include:
- Quality management systems, assessed against ISO 9001
- Environmental management systems, assessed against ISO 14001
- Occupational health and safety management systems, assessed against ISO 45001
- Food safety management systems, assessed against ISO 22000
- Information security management systems, assessed against ISO/IEC 27001
- Inspection of products, installations, plant and processes
- Certification of the competence of individuals against a defined scheme
Why anybody should care
Because a certificate is a claim, and claims are cheap. A purchaser who receives a supplier’s ISO 9001 certificate has been given a piece of paper by an organisation they have never heard of, attesting to something they cannot check.
Accreditation is how that chain is closed. It puts a body with no commercial interest in the certificate between the purchaser and the claim, and it makes the result checkable — publicly, by number, without asking anyone’s permission.
The chain, end to end
A standard is written
ISO and other bodies publish requirements — ISO 9001 for quality management, ISO/IEC 17021-1 for the bodies that certify against it.
A company implements it
The organisation builds its management system to meet the standard.
A certification body audits and certifies
An independent body audits the system and, if satisfied, issues a certificate.
An accreditation body assesses the certification body
TQC assesses that body against ISO/IEC 17021-1 — its competence, impartiality and decision-making — and accredits it if the criteria are met.
Anyone can verify
The certificate number resolves against a public register, so the chain can be checked from the outside by anyone who cares to.
