History

IRCA was formed in 1984 as part of the UK government's enterprise initiative, designed to make industry and business more competitive, through the implementation of quality principles and practices. This structure included IRCA, an accreditation body (now UKAS), a national standards making body (BSI Standards) and a number of commercial certification bodies. The original quality management standard used was the British standard BS 5750, which has since evolved to become ISO 9001.

IRCA has earned a reputation for integrity, for contributing value and for best practice. The evaluation and certification methods developed and used by IRCA have been adopted as the industry standard model used by other auditor certification bodies, which indicates that we remain the auditor certification that supplier organizations, certification bodies and auditors value most. Over 35,000 auditors have been awarded certification since 1984 and more than 150 countries are represented on the IRCA register.