Certification and beyond

a. Preparing for assessment day

In advance of the visit from the certification body’s evaluator, take the time to check that you are now clearly documenting how your organisation’s current processes and systems map against the five parts of the standard. During the assessment, it will be important to show that you say what you do, and that you do what you say – and record it!

You should also make sure that all staff and managers involved in the information production systems are aware of the evaluator’s visit and are available on the day. This is particularly important for lead managers as the evaluator may want to speak with them about further, corrective action.

b. Assessment day

On the day of the assessment, the evaluator is looking to confirm that your organisation is complying with the standard requirements.

At the end of the assessment, the evaluator will hold a closing meeting and present his or her findings. This will include a verbal summary of all the problems or concerns – known as ‘non-conformities’ – which your organisation needs to address before it can be certified. The nature of the non-conformities will be clearly explained to you, so you will understand why they have been raised and what action you can take to correct them.

A written summary of the non-conformities will be given to you at this meeting, or issued to you within one working day after completion of the evaluation.

c. Review findings

If the evaluator raised non-conformities at the closing meeting, you will have both agreed a time-scale for you to draw up a corrective action plan and submit it to the certification body.
Once you’ve completed your actions, you should contact your certification body to confirm the additional work has been completed. You need to do this within 28 days of the evaluation meeting, or within the agreed timescales with your chosen certification body. You must resolve all non-conformities before your organisation can be considered for certification.

d. Certification

Once you have successfully completed the assessment, your organisation will be certified. Congratulations! Your organisation’s name will then be added to our online register. You will also be sent a log-in to The Information Standard members area on our website. Here you’ll have access to a marketing toolkit, designed to help you promote your certified status to the public. It includes the quality mark logo and guidelines about how to display it on your materials.

Your organisation will need to renew certification every three years to stay in the scheme. This will involve further annual re-assessments to ensure your organisation remains compliant with requirements of The Information Standard.
 

Last updated: 19/01/2012