Some schemes in Certification of Persons are normally driven in every country by the “National professionals association” for instance: “Nondestructive testing” and “welders”. In such cases almost all of the professionals active at the country are normally certified (and need to be continuously certified) by the only CB active in the country. So, the AB often have a lot of difficulties to find and select technical experts for the assessments and finally have to collaborate with a person already certified by the CB.
With that view of this constrain and taken into account the specificities of this schemes (standard based certification, thousands of certified persons, a well-established scheme with computer based exams and anonymous files for review , re-evaluation based mainly in experience of certified persons) we would like to hear your opinion about the potential risk to impartiality if the AB collaborate with a Technical expert already certified by the assessed CB?. The fact that the T. Expert belongs to the group of interest of “employer/recruiter of the persons certified” (and not to the welders) besides to the “certified persons” group of interest may reduce the risk? The Technical expert is always accompanied and monitored by an assessor at the office assessments.
Our impartially risk analysis of the situation considered all of that aspects and couldn’t reach a conclusion, the risk of not behaving “critical” enough because of “self-interest and familiarity” of the TE can be minimized due to the presence of the Assessor. and is check by the past experience but the risk associated with “the external perception” of the situation can’t not be reduced. This is why we would like to hear from you additional arguments.
September 2019
If the accreditation body cannot find a competent technical expert from another source within the country (not certified by that accredited certification body or without any risk of impartiality, for example academicians from universities, industry practitioners or regulatory authorities, etc.), then the following options may be considered:
1- Persons who have received a certificate from the same certification institution in the past but who have cut the certification relationship (those who have passed at least 2 years after the certification as stipulated in ISO/IEC 17021-1; retired, etc.) can be appointed as technical experts.
2- Competent technical experts in the pool of another EA member AB (provided that the requirements of impartiality and competence are met).
3- The accreditation body can train one or several full-time personnel with suitable professional background in this field and may gain experience in on-site practice and may be assigned to assessments.
4- If TAs are used, they are there purely to support the assessor and have no direct Corrective Action review responsibilities.Note: The NAB should demonstrate that the options 1-3 have been considered, and have been deemed to be not feasible, prior to using TA/TE with a potential risk for impartiality.