IRCA news
New bilateral agreement
IRCA and RABQSA International have announced the signing of a bilateral agreement that allows the mutual recognition of each other's training course certifications.
Both organizations are engaging in a series of peer evaluations that will identify those certification products that are mutually acceptable. These, and others over time, will be added formally to a register of mutually accepted certificates that will be made publicly available.
IRCA director Simon Feary comments: ‘Training is now a global market and there are major advantages in aligning our certification products and making them mutually acceptable. The training organizations, the delegates and everyone benefits.’
RABQSA’s CEO Mike Carmody agrees: ‘This is a positive and commonsense initiative of benefit to our respective stakeholders, customers and the industry in general. Auditor and training certification bodies and the whole certification industry is increasingly under pressure to add value. Aligning our products and accepting each other’s certifications is a positive step in that direction.’
It is intended that the bilateral agreement will commence on completion of the first round of peer evaluations.
Experience counts
The Institute of Quality Assurance (IQA) has produced guidelines for any IRCA-certified auditor who wishes to become a member of IQA (MIQA).
IQA recognizes that IRCA-certified auditors have a very specific set of competences which could provide some form of credits through the experiential route to membership. The guidelines set out how these competences may best be used in presenting a portfolio of evidence for assessment using the experiential route to MIQA. Assessors will look for a cross-section of knowledge and experience that indicates that you are a rounded quality professional. Knowledge of the Body of Quality Knowledge is necessary.
For more information and an application form click on the following links:
Download IRCA Lead Auditor guidance notes
Download application form
Download general guidance notes
New training certification manager
IRCA is pleased to announce the appointment of Teresa Folkes as its new training certification manager.
Teresa comes to IRCA from DNV UK where she was operations manager and latterly training services manager. IRCA director, Simon Feary, says: ‘Teresa joins IRCA with specialist skills in quality management system auditing and auditor training to continue our work is making IRCA certified auditor training the benchmark for the industry worldwide. We are very pleased to welcome her to the IRCA management team.’
Teresa takes over IRCA’s global auditor training certification operation from Vincent Desmond, working with IRCA’s 90 approved training providers who provide IRCA certified auditor training for over 60,000 students in more than in 100 countries. Vincent remains at IRCA in charge of business development.
Teresa will be based in IRCA’s London office and you can contact her on e: tfolkes@irca.org or +44 (0)20 7245 6833