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Impartiality is the foundation of accredited certification. This statement sets out how GRS identifies, evaluates and controls every threat to it.
Global Registrar of Systems Pty Ltd (ABN 42 619 007 477) understands the importance of impartiality in carrying out management system certification. Certification has value only if the market can trust that our conclusions were reached on evidence alone.
Top management is committed to impartiality in all certification activities, manages conflicts of interest, and ensures the objectivity of every certification activity. This commitment is publicly stated, applies across every office and every scheme within our scope, and is not subject to commercial override.
Responsibility for impartiality rests with top management, who are accountable for the policy, its resourcing and its enforcement. It is not delegated to the audit team, and it is not weighed against sales targets.
Personnel at every level — employees, contract auditors, technical experts, reviewers, decision makers and committee members — are required to act impartially and to raise anything that could be perceived to compromise it.
We maintain an ongoing process to identify threats to impartiality arising from our activities, our relationships, and the relationships of our personnel. Sources of threat we specifically assess include self-interest, self-review, familiarity, advocacy, intimidation and competition.
Each identified risk is documented, evaluated and either eliminated or reduced to an acceptable level, with the residual risk recorded. Relationships are assessed at the level of the organisation, its related bodies, and the individuals involved — a threat can arise from a relationship a person holds even where the organisation holds none.
To remove the most serious threats at their source, GRS does not:
We do not state or imply that certification would be simpler, easier, faster or less expensive if a particular consultancy were used.
All personnel, internal and external, declare any current or prior relationship with an organisation before being assigned to work on it. Declarations are reviewed before assignment and refreshed annually.
Personnel who have provided consultancy to an organisation — including as an employee of a consultancy — are not used to audit, review or decide on that organisation for at least two years following the end of that engagement. The same two-year rule applies to former employees of the client organisation.
Where a threat cannot be eliminated, the assignment is not made. Rotation of audit team members is applied to prevent familiarity building over successive cycles.
The decision to grant, maintain, extend, reduce, suspend or withdraw certification is made by personnel who did not carry out the audit. Reviewers and decision makers hold the competence to evaluate the evidence and are free of any interest in the outcome.
Auditors are never remunerated on the number of audits carried out, the findings raised, or the certification outcome. No incentive scheme links assessment personnel to the commercial result of an engagement.
GRS is financed by fees charged for certification, inspection and training services under transparent, published terms. We monitor income concentration so that no single client, sector or source of revenue can exert pressure on certification decisions.
Fee structures are set independently of audit findings. A nonconformity never changes the fee, and a client's commercial size never changes the audit programme required by the applicable standard.
An impartiality committee, drawn to represent a balance of interests with no single interest predominating, oversees our safeguards. It reviews the policies and principles for the content and impartiality of our certification activities, our management of conflicts of interest, and any counteraction to threats identified.
The committee has access to the information it needs and the authority to advise on any matter affecting confidence in certification. Where GRS does not accept its advice, the committee has the right to take independent action, including notifying our accreditation body.
Impartiality depends on trust, and trust depends on confidentiality. Information obtained in the course of certification activities is treated as confidential, subject only to legal and accreditation obligations, and all personnel are bound by written confidentiality undertakings. Our privacy policy explains how personal information within those records is handled.
Any interested party who believes the impartiality of a GRS certification activity has been compromised may raise it with us. Contact certification@grscertification.com or call 1300 007 477, or lodge an appeal or complaint through our information page.
Concerns are handled confidentially by personnel independent of the engagement in question. We acknowledge every submission within two business days and respond substantively within five. Raising a concern never affects your certification status.