How certification works
Nine steps over a three-year cycle. This page is the published description of every one of them, including how audit time and fees are worked out and how a certification can be suspended, withdrawn, reduced or transferred.
- 01
Application
You tell us the standards, the scope, how many people are in it and how many sites.
- 02
Application review
We work out the audit time, confirm we have a competent auditor for every standard, and quote.
- 03
Stage 1 audit
Is the management system designed and documented well enough to be audited against?
- 04
Stage 2 audit
Is it actually implemented and working — on the evidence, at your sites.
- 05
Findings and corrective action
Anything that does not conform is written up, and you respond with a corrective action.
- 06
Certification decision
Taken by someone who had no part in your audit. That independence is enforced, not promised.
- 07
Certificate
Issued, and published in the public register the same moment.
- 08
Surveillance
Once in each of the two years after certification. The first is due within 12 months of the decision.
- 09
Recertification
Before the three years are up, the whole system is audited again.
Audit time is calculated, not quoted from a feeling. It is derived from the standard being audited, the number of people in the certified scope, and the number and spread of your sites. We show you the calculation with the quotation.
The number of people we use is the effective number of personnel — everyone whose work is inside the scope, including part-time and contracted people counted proportionally. It is often lower than your headcount, and it is the figure that matters.
Certain things increase or decrease audit time: multiple standards audited together reduce it, because the shared parts of a management system are audited once. Multiple sites, high risk activity, or a scope covering several distinct processes increase it.
No part of our fee depends on the outcome. Nobody acting for UMA is paid according to how many certifications are granted, or how they turn out. You are buying an audit and a judgement. Nobody can sell you the judgement's conclusion.
Fees cover the audit days, the reporting, the certification decision and the certificate. Travel and subsistence are charged at cost where a site visit requires it, and stated in the quotation before you accept.
Surveillance
A certificate is valid for 3 years, and it is not left alone in between. The first surveillance audit is due within 12 months of the certification decision — not twelve months from the certificate date, and not from the audit. A second follows in the year after. Missing a surveillance audit is grounds for suspension.
Changes you must tell us about
A certified management system is a live thing. You must notify us, without delay, of anything that affects the basis on which we certified you: a change of legal or trading name, ownership or control; a significant change to the management system or to how you are organised; a new site or a site that closes; a change to the scope of what is certified; a prosecution, or serious incident relevant to the standard.
Suspension
A certification is suspended where the system has failed but the failure may be repaired — a surveillance audit refused or not completed, a major nonconformity not corrected in time, misuse of the certification mark, or fees unpaid. While suspended, the certification is not in force: you must stop claiming it, and it appears in the public register marked as suspended rather than disappearing from it.
A suspension is reviewed by a published deadline. If the cause is not resolved by then, the certification is withdrawn.
Withdrawal and reduction of scope
Withdrawal ends the certification. It follows an unresolved suspension, a decision that the system no longer conforms, or your own request. A withdrawn certificate leaves the directory but stays checkable by its number, so a copy in circulation can still be shown to be no longer valid.
Where only part of a scope has failed, the scope is reduced to what still conforms rather than withdrawing the whole certification.
Transferring a certification to UMA
A certification held with another body can be transferred rather than started again. We review the existing certification and its audit history, and we verify it with the body that issued it — not from your copy of the certificate. A transferred certification keeps the expiry date it already had; it does not reset to a fresh three years.
You do not have to accept a finding or a decision. An appeal must reach us within 30 days of being notified; we acknowledge it within 5 working days and decide within 60 days. It is reviewed by someone who took no part in the decision being appealed. The published appeals process →
Anyone may complain about UMA, or about an organisation UMA has certified — you do not need to be our client. The published complaints process →