LRQA is the first assurance provider to have been awarded global accreditation by the United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS) for making the transitions against the world’s leading ISO management systems standards. The scope of the accreditation covers Quality (ISO 9001), Environmental (ISO 14001), Food Safety (ISO 22000), Asset Management (ISO 55001), Business Continuity (ISO 22301), Energy (ISO 50001), Information Security (ISO 27001), IT Service (ISO 20000) and Supply Chain Security Management Systems (ISO 28000). Along with these ISO standards, LRQA has also been awarded global accreditation against International Occupational Health & Safety management system standard OHSAS 18001.
UKAS has implemented a stringent set of requirements which assurance providers need to demonstrate their competence against in order to gain accreditation. With these requirements including detailed reviews of any changes to LRQA’s processes and assessor training, UKAS has recently completed successful audits of LRQA’s operations, including a comprehensive review of procedures, office audits (covering LRQA’s global operations) and on-site witnessed audits for the new standards against ISO/IEC 17021-1:2015 (conformity assessment -- requirements for bodies providing audit and certification of management systems).
Denis Ives, LRQA director of service innovation and governance says, “As we approach World Accreditation Day on June 9, we are delighted to announce that we are the world’s first provider of professional assurance services to be able to issue UKAS globally accredited certificates against these revised ISO standards. As LRQA holds UKAS accreditation number 001 as the first ever certification body for both ISO 9001 and ISO 14001, we continue to be committed to delivering best in class assessment and certification services.”
John Rowley, LRQA managing director says, “Organizations can be confident that the combination of procedural, office and witnessed audits undertaken by UKAS to demonstrate LRQA’s competence, will give the highest level of assurance to clients that the certificates issued to them are both credible and impartial.”
With all the major ISO standards being revised, LRQA is at the forefront of communicating the changes and offers a range of assessment services as well public and in-house training courses, all aimed at helping to ensure that organizations worldwide have a smooth transition to the new standards.
