The IRCA interview
In the first of a new series in which INform talks to IRCA director, Simon Feary, about the very latest issues in auditing and certification, we find out about ISO 17024
What
effects do you think ISO 17024, the new personnel accreditation standard,
will have on IRCA and on auditor certification in general?
There has been a great deal of comment about this standard from those involved in auditor certification. Much discussion focuses on the necessity of a 'radical' change in the way we, the auditor certification bodies, operate. However, I'm not sure the word radical should be associated with this standard. We see the primary implications of ISO 17024 as being the removal of a mandatory requirement for training and an emphasis on an independent assessment of auditor competence and attributes. This is the interesting part of ISO 17024 and should present a fascinating challenge and potential opportunity.
Auditor competences have been defined recently in ISO 19011, as have the auditor attributes, so what remains for us is the challenge of determining how we assess an individual's competence and attributes. It should be done in a meaningful way that is sufficiently separate from training to remove any conflict of interest and be considered independent, and in a manner that is cost-effective and which must be cost-acceptable to all the stakeholder interests.
Some people within the industry are calling for a complete redesign of the certification model, which includes doing away with the specification and control of training courses and focusing only on the assessment or testing of auditor competence. I am not sure this radical redesign is necessary. I also have some fundamental concerns about its compatibility with what our customers require.
So is IRCA suggesting
no change at all?
Before we get too focused on definitions and interpretations of ISO 17024, and how we are going to accommodate all this change, we should stand back, look at the big picture and ask ourselves some fundamental questions: Should IRCA change what it is currently doing?
First, we should acknowledge and accept that our current practices provide a service that is valued by over 12,000 auditors and countless certification bodies. So a debate on whether we certify competence or certify qualifications or whether we are input based or output based is largely academic.
But we recognize that ISO 17024 has value and that it has prompted us again to look for more effective and independent ways to measure whether someone is competent to audit. But it may be fanciful to assume that we can devise a new, radical model for certifying auditors that is universally effective and at the same time is cost-acceptable.
We should also recognize that ISO 17024 is not designed specifically for accreditation of auditor certification. It is intended for all contexts of personnel certification from gas fitters to financial advisors, and we should accept that its application, under the strictest interpretations, might not be compatible with the limitations inherent within the highly subjective profession of auditing.
Are you suggesting there may be a disparity between the requirements
of ISO 17024 and what the market is prepared to pay for - and does
that influence IRCA's approach?
It means we must be careful. The current model (see figure 1) has a strong emphasis on inputs. Our assumption has always been that by controlling the inputs we achieve the desired outcome, which is a competent auditor.
Figure 1
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It is a model that has stood the test of time and although it may not be perfect, it is powerful. The key element in the current model is effective auditor training and examination. In recent years IRCA has put considerable effort into refining the learning methodology, and we continue to do this.
An example is our recently launched accelerated learning approach and our new flexible learning model. In terms of auditor examination, we remain the only training approval body to design and control centrally the examinations that students take after completing auditor courses as a test of their knowledge. This indicates that we give higher priority to the integrity and quality of the examination than other training approval bodies. But we recognize there is more we can do to examine competence, and ISO 17024 does require us to put more emphasis on this aspect.
One reaction to ISO 17024 which does alarm us is the enthusiasm of some to rush into discarding input based competence assessment and instead adopting a model (see figure 2) that relies on a single examination of competence with no controls on the training process and any other prerequisite inputs.
Figure 2
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Like many theories, the 'examination only' approach may sound good on paper, but IRCA is far from being convinced that this will deliver the benefits to warrant the costs and disruption which will inevitably accompany changes to current practices. We believe there remains a strong argument for retaining a control over the training process for two reasons.
We work with ISO 19011 which advocates a number of prerequisites including training, education, work experience and audit experience, and these parameters should remain a part of any new or revised programme.
Second, maintaining training course certification allows us to manage risk effectively. Putting controls only at the examination stage of the process is very high risk. If the controls are not sufficiently robust then the entire process is vulnerable to negligence and abuse and we will end up certifying incompetence. In our view, it is very important that consumers maintain confidence in the integrity of the output of the auditor certification process and we do this by retaining control over auditor training components.
So it is very unlikely that any changes we make as a result of ISO 17024 will include doing away with our current practice of approving training organizations and certifying the presentation of their courses.
The one element we do need to consider is how we make any examination of competence independent of training as required by ISO 17024. Whether we will be able to convince our accreditation bodies that what we currently do is indeed to measure competences is still not determined. We won't expect a major shift away from certifying courses, but I would be surprised if IRCA would consider developing a programme that met ISO 17024, but would not pursue accreditation.
In any serious consideration of accreditation we need to be clear about what our primary role as an auditor certification body is. Is it to be accredited, or is it to provide a service that meets the needs of the certification and conformity assessment industry? IRCA has always been clear that if the two are not compatible, then accreditation comes a distant second.
Let me emphasize that we do see value in auditor certification being included within the accreditation umbrella, and hope that the accreditation bodies which, in the past, have been lukewarm about auditor certification, think likewise and are inclined to interpret the application and implementation of ISO 17024 in a constructive and realistic manner.
Accredited certification as an industry is facing some stiff challenges. Reasons for not working together, which are rooted in history and ideology, only serve to distract all of us from achieving the very worthwhile objectives of adding value to business and industry and challenging the perception that accredited certification has had its day.
I am pleased to say that our initial discussions with UKAS have been promising and I look forward to working with them to review our certification model: first, against the demands business and industry makes on our services, and second, against the requirements of ISO 17024.
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