Impartiality
A certification body that helps you build a management system and then certifies it is judging its own work. ISO/IEC 17021-1 forbids it. We would rather state the boundary plainly than have you discover it by asking.
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We do not consult.
No implementation support, no gap analysis, no pre-assessment, no internal audits, no document drafting and no management system training — for any organisation, whether we certify them or not.
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We do not recommend consultants.
And we accept no referral, commission or introduction arrangement from any of them. If you ask us who to hire, the honest answer is that we cannot tell you, and that any body which does has given itself an interest in your choice.
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We will refuse your application if we have advised you.
Where UMA, or any business under common ownership with UMA, has provided management system consultancy, internal audit or training to an organisation, we do not accept that organisation’s application for at least two years after the engagement ends. We keep a register of who that excludes, and we check it before accepting anything.
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Nobody here is paid on outcomes.
No one acting for UMA is remunerated according to the number of certifications granted, or how they turn out. An auditor whose pay improves when they certify you is not an auditor.
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We do not tell you the result in advance, and we do not promise one.
What we sell is an audit and a judgement. Nobody can sell you the judgement’s conclusion.
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We do not claim certification means more than it does.
A certificate records that a management system conforms to a standard, on the evidence we saw. It does not make a product safe, it does not make you compliant with the law, and it does not make you better than a competitor. It is worth having for exactly what it is.
The commitment
UMA understands the importance of impartiality in carrying out management system certification, manages conflicts of interest, and ensures the objectivity of its certification activities. This is a statement of how the body is run, and it is the condition on which everything else here rests.
Identifying threats, continuously
We maintain a register of threats to impartiality — from our activities, our relationships, the relationships of our people, and the ownership of the business. Each is assessed for how serious it is and what reduces it to an acceptable level. Where it cannot be reduced to an acceptable level, we do not take the work.
The threats a certification body actually faces are well understood, and we name ours:
- Self-interest — wanting the fee, or wanting to keep a client
- Self-review — auditing something we ourselves designed or advised on
- Familiarity — auditing an organisation, or people, we know too well
- Intimidation — a client threatening to leave, or to escalate, over a finding
Related businesses, and the two-year bar
Impartiality is not only about UMA. It extends to any business under common ownership or control, because a client cannot be expected to distinguish between a body that advised them and the body next door that certifies them.
Where a related body has provided management system consultancy, internal audit or training to an organisation, UMA does not certify that organisation for at least two years after the engagement ends. We maintain a register of the organisations this excludes and we check it at application. It is not a formality: it has consequences for business we would otherwise be glad to have.
The impartiality committee
A committee including members from outside UMA oversees impartiality. It has real authority: it reviews the threat register, examines decisions where impartiality was in question, and can require UMA to act. It is not advisory decoration — if it were, it would be worse than nothing, because it would suggest oversight that did not exist.
Independence of the certification decision
The person who decides your certification took no part in your audit. This is not a policy that people remember to follow; it is a constraint in the system that runs UMA, which refuses the action outright. The same applies to reviewing an appeal: the reviewer had no part in the decision being appealed.
Auditors declare conflicts before they can be assigned
Before an auditor can be put on your audit, they confirm they have no conflict with your organisation — no employment, no consultancy, no financial interest, no relationship that would compromise the judgement. Without that confirmation, the assignment is refused. If a conflict emerges mid-engagement, the auditor comes off the audit.
If you think we have got this wrong
Tell us. A concern about the impartiality of an auditor or a decision can be raised as a complaint, and the composition of an audit team can be appealed. Both routes are open to anyone and neither is held against you.