ISO 17021-1 requires:
“9.2.2.1.1 The certification body shall have a process for selecting and appointing the audit team, including the audit team leader and technical experts as necessary, taking into account the competence needed to achieve the objectives of the audit and requirements for impartiality. (…)”
“9.2.2.1.3 The necessary knowledge and skills of the audit team leader and auditors may be supplemented by technical experts, translators and interpreters who shall operate under the direction of an auditor.(…)”
Should AB accept the situation where a CAB appoints the audit team composed of an audit team leader and an expert, where knowledge of technical area is provided only by the expert? (particularly, clause A.2.6 related to the types of products or processes of a client sufficient to understand how such an organization can operate and how the organization can apply the requirements of the management system standard or other relevant normative documents).
March 2019
It is acceptable to have an audit team composed of an audit team leader and a technical expert provided that the team collectively has the required competence to achieve the audit objectives.
In particular, the competence requirements referred to in clause A.2.6 may be fulfilled by the technical expert with the support of the audit team leader in what concerns particularly the application of the management system standard in the organization. In such case, it is apparent that the audit team leader should be competent in the named management system standard.
It is noted that, according to Table A.1, the competences defined in A.2.6 are required for the certification function ‘‘auditing and leading the audit team’’. The particular function can be sufficiently operated by individual auditors or a competent audit team composed by a team leader and an expert.
According to the definition given for the technical expert in ISO/IEC 17021-1 Standard, the specific knowledge or expertise of a technical expert is related to the organization, the process or activity to be audited. Therefore, the objective of clause A.2.6 can be achieved through a technical expert instead of an auditor.
As the technical expert has to be accompanied and cannot work alone, this means that the team leader must complete the whole audit, supported by the technical expert, who will be under the team leader’s supervision. The role of the technical expert should be clearly shown on the audit plan.