Before responding to your specific concern I would like to clarify the roles of the various organizations involved in certification to ISO standards as follows:
The role of ISO:
ISO is a standards development organization and as such we are only involved in the development of standards. ISO is not in any way involved in the certification of companies to any of the standards we develop. This is done by independent organizations called certification bodies. Therefore a company cannot be either accredited or certified by ISO.
The role of certification bodies:
When we publish a standard it will have the ISO logo and the number of the specific standard, for example ISO 9001. Independent (largely private) certification bodies certify companies against this standard and then they issue a certificate under the name and logo of the certification body itself but referring to the ISO standard e.g. ISO 9001. This sometimes is understood by the public to imply that ISO has issued the certificate where in actual fact it refers solely to the standard used. The certification body is the organization that has issued the certificate and has responsibility for the certificate.
The role of accreditation bodies:
ISO cooperates with a number of organizations to ensure the credibility of the certificates issued by certification bodies. We work closely with our national member bodies in each country but also with the International Accreditation Forum (IAF) to achieve this. The IAF monitors their members to ensure they comply with international standards and norms when issuing certificates and takes action when this is found not to be the case. As part of this cooperation, accredited certification bodies are obliged to operate their certification in accordance with international standards. When a certification body is accredited by the national accreditation body this adds another level of confidence to their operation. Accredited means the certification body is independently checked to ensure they do operate according to international standards. The organization that usually accredits the certification body is the national accreditation body of the country in which the certificate is issued.
Your specific concern:
We strongly support and recommend that a certification body operates in accordance with ISO/IEC 17021-1. By meeting the requirements of this standard the certification body should be competent to perform the certifications on management system standards. See also the complete list of standards on conformity assessment at the following link:
https://www.iso.org/ics/03.120.20/x/p/1/u/0/w/0/d/0
It is up to the certification body to decide if it wishes to be accredited by an accreditation body for independent verification that it meets the requirements of ISO/IEC 17021-1.
A list of accreditation bodies is provided through the IAF members Web page:
https://www.iaf.nu/articles/IAF_MEMBERS_SIGNATORIES/4
Check out our conformity assessment resources Web page:
https://www.iso.org/resources-for-conformity-assessment.html
For further information and guidance on ISO standards for conformity assessment, please contact your national ISO member.
How to become a certification body
Updated over 3 weeks ago