See
9.5.1.1 The certification body shall ensure that the persons or committees that make the decisions for
granting or refusing certification, expanding or reducing the scope of certification, suspending or restoring certification, withdrawing certification or renewing certification are different from those who carried out the audits.
5.2.12 All certification body personnel, either internal or external, or committees, who could influence
the certification activities, shall act impartially and shall not allow commercial, financial or other pressures to compromise impartiality.
Therefore, there is no requirements that states that the sales person (internal or external sale agent) has to be are different from those who carry out the audits or take decision.
However if the sales person takes a fee from the CB for selling the certification service, there is a high risk of impartiality if the same sales agent is involved also in auditing or decision.
So, is it an acceptable risk the fact that a sales person could act, for the same client, also as an auditor or a decision maker?
Example:
- Mr. Smith (sales agent) takes the fee of 100 € from the CB for each contract signed by a new client, and other 500 € if the Client maintains the certification for the first certification cycle.
- After the signature of the contract, the CB assigns to Mr. Smith also the responsibility to perform the audits or the decision
- if the audit goes well Mr. Smith earn extra 500 €.. a good incentive to grant a certificate!
September 2017
There is no requirement of ISO/IEC 17021 which specifically prevents a sales person being involved in audits or decisions of clients he/she has introduced to a certification body. Clause 5.2.1 of ISO/IEC 17021 requires that certification body shall be responsible for the impartiality of its conformity assessment activities and shall not allow commercial, financial or other pressures to compromise impartiality. In the example quoted, there will clearly be a potential conflict of interest which could compromise the impartiality of the certification process and Clause 5.2.3 of ISO/IEC 17021 requires the certification body to:
- have a process to identify, analyse, evaluate, treat, monitor, and document the risks related to conflict of interests arising from provision of certification;
- document and demonstrate how it eliminates or minimizes such threats and document any residual risk
- (top management) shall review any residual risk to determine if it is within the level of acceptable risk
This is reinforced by Clause 5.2.13 of ISO/IEC 17021 which requires the certification body to- require personnel, internal and external, to reveal any situation known to them that can present them or the certification body with a conflict of interests;
- record and use this information as input to identifying threats to impartiality raised by the activities of such personnel or by the organizations that employ them;
- not use such personnel, internal or external, unless they can demonstrate that there is no conflict of interest.
It may be possible that a sales person could be involved in the certification process, provided the certification body can demonstrate that its process for managing impartiality has evaluated that there is no conflict of interest. The fact that for clients the sales person has introduced to the certification body, he/she will receive payment depending on a positive audit/decision, means there is a conflict of interest and he/she cannot be used in the certification process (ref. ISO/IEC 17021 Clause 5.2.13). This would not, necessarily, prevent the sales person being used for clients he/she did not introduce to the certification body.
Clause 5.2 note 1 should also be noted: Source of threats to impartiality of the certification body can be based on :payment of a sales commission or other inducement for the referral of a new clients etc.