Management of Impartiality

Certification Oceania shall:

1. ensure the impartiality of its certification services, not allowing commercial, financial or other pressures to compromise impartiality;

2. identify the risks to its impartiality on an ongoing basis with every client, including those potential conflicts of interest which may arise from its activities, relationships, or from previous work relationships between clients and Certification Oceania personnel;

3. ensure employees and contractors sign a confidentiality agreement upon commencement of employment or contract work and when assigned work with a new client, a Declaration of Conflict of Interest is completed before participating in the Certification process to ensure that there are no situations or circumstances that could affect their impartiality;

4. function independently from other legal entities and operate in a non-discriminatory manner, undertaking all certification activities impartially;

5. not state, or imply that certification would be simpler, easier, faster or less expensive if a specified consultancy organisation were used;

6. respond to any risks to its impartiality arising from the actions of other persons, bodies or organisations, of which it becomes aware, so as to ensure that impartially is preserved for all certification activities;

7. not market or offer as linked with the activities of an organisation that provides consultancy services;

8. ensure that there is segregation of functions or duties to ensure that no one person can be in a position to control all stages of processing a client’s application for certification, assessment, assessment review and recommendation, and certification decision; and

9. shall ensure that risk mitigation control measures and procedures are followed to ensure that there is no conflict of interest in application evaluation, auditing, review and certification decision making – eg, assessments, assessment reviews and recommendations to Certify, and Certification decision/Certificate sign-off/approval are undertaken by an independent and objective, competent and authorised persons.

Where a risk to impartiality is identified, Certification Oceania demonstrates and documents how it eliminates or risk-mitigates/manages the identified risk; with control strategies documented and recorded.

During the certification, accreditation and compliance assessment of clients’ management system/s, Certification Oceania shall ensure that personnel undertaking client assessments or involved in the Certification decision-making process/decision to certify, shall maintain impartiality and within a period two years, personnel shall not be used to assess, review, or make a certification decision for a client’s management system for which they have provided consultancy.

Commitment

Certification Oceania has Director and management commitment to impartiality, with an Impartiality Committee appointed to ensure impartiality is maintained for the Certification Oceania’s Management System Certification Schemes, and is committed to:

1. the importance of impartiality and management of conflict of interest in all management system Certification activities; and

2. operating independently and with integrity in conducting management system Certification activities in conformity with the International Standard ISO/IEC 17021 and the requirements of the Regulatory Authority.

Last updated: 9 December 2020

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