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OH&S Certification in the UK
The current position with regard to OH&S certification in the UK, and ISCA’s response to it, is described below.
ISCA and OHSAS 18001 Certification by Tony Boyle
Introduction
The fact that an organisation claims to operate a management system is, of itself, not a guarantee that the management system is adequate or effective. This has long been recognised with respect to product and service quality and has led to the development and implementation of a certificatable quality management standard, ISO 9000. More recently similar action has been taken in environmental management and there is now a certificatable environmental standard, ISO 14001. However, this is not the case with Occupational Health and Safety (OH&S) management systems.
These notes begin with a description the current position with respect to OH&S management systems and identifies the problems associated with the current position. There is then an outline of how the Independent Safety Consultants Association (ISCA) has responded to the current position.
OH&S Certification
It can be argued that a valid certification process requires the following.
There must be a written standard for the management system with which the organisation requiring certification must comply.
There must be a body of disinterested and competent personnel who can assess whether an organisation is complying with the written standard. This part of the process is usually referred to as external audit, or simply audit.
There must be an authoritative body which verifies that the auditors remain disinterested and competent.
Note that disinterested means having no vested interest in the outcome and this point is discussed in more detail later in these notes.
All of these are in place in the UK for product and service quality management (based on ISO 9000) and for environmental management (based on ISO 14001) but for OH&S the position, at present, appears to be as follows.
BS 8800 is not a certificatable standard and the Foreword states "This publication contains guidance and recommendations. It should not be quoted as if it were a specification and should not be used for certification purposes.".
According to the BSI there is an "urgent customer demand for a recognizable occupational health and safety management system standard against which their management systems can be assessed and certified.". (OHSAS 18001)
In response to this demand, the BSI produced OHSAS 18001 which is not, however, a British Standard and "the OHSAS specification will be withdrawn on publication of its contents in, or as, an international standard.". (OHSAS 18001)
The position is, therefore, that there is a British Standard on health and safety management (BS 8800) which is not for certification and a non-standard (OHSAS 18001) which is for certification. Thus the position, so far as the first requirement for effective certification listed above is concerned, is, to say the least, confused.
However, there is further confusion in regard to the second and third requirements.
It appears to be the case that anyone in the UK can claim to be a disinterested and competent person and award certification of a health and safety management system under OHSAS 18001. The only constraint on this would appear to be the market place in that organisations genuinely requiring certification are likely to go to personnel with a reputation for ethical work in this area. However, this is a most unsatisfactory arrangement.
There is a further problem in that OH&S consultancies can provide advisory services to organisations on how to implement OHSAS 18001, and then audit them for compliance with OHSAS 18001. This means, in effect, that the auditors may not be disinterested. The sorts of problems which this creates in the financial world have recently been illustrated by the dramatic example of the Enron collapse. Unfortunately, there appear to be no good reasons to suppose that the same types of problem are not possible is the OH&S world.
So far as the requirement for an authoritative body is concerned, there simply is no such body for overseeing OH&S accreditors. In theory, UKAS could adopt this role as it has done for other audit requirements but, for whatever reason, they appear not to be doing this. In the vacuum which this creates, consultancies are simply issuing certificates of compliance without any external check on the validity or reliability of the certification process.
These problems have been of concern to ISCA members for some time and the next section describes the action ISCA is taking.
ISCA’s Action
Because of the lack of clarity in health and safety management system certification, ISCA has taken action in all three of the problem areas described in the previous section.
Written Standard
OHSAS 18001 and 18002 are a good description of a health and safety management system and ISCA has adopted these as the standard against which they will issue certificates. This may generate some argument since the BSI maintains that OHSAS 18001 is not a standard, but this seems to be a political rather than a practical distinction and, in ISCA’s view, OHSAS 18001 is a major improvement on BS 8800.
However, the requirements of OHSAS 18001 and 18002 have been translated into something which organisations will find easier to understand and use. ISCA has developed audit documentation which meets the following criteria.
It can be used by organisations to assess their compliance with OHSAS 18001 and 18002.
It is in a "user friendly" format, that is, a series of questions, with guidance where necessary.
It can be used to produce a series of percentage "scores" which give a quantitative indication of the extent of compliance.
As an extra aid to organisations, the audit documentation is available in a computerised version to facilitate data recording and analysis.
Disinterested Auditors
ISCA members taking part in the ISCA certification scheme have voluntarily restricted their activities under the scheme to one of the following categories.
Providing advisory consultancy on the implementation of OHSAS 18001.
Auditing compliance with OHSAS 18001. The companies in this category also provide Briefing Days for organisations wishing to learn more about OHSAS 18001 and other OH&S management systems, and Initial Status Reviews for organisations requiring an initial assessment of how close they are to compliance.
This voluntary action ensures that there can be no conflict of interests between consultancy and audit.
Authoritative Body
ISCA will take the part of the authoritative body in the certification scheme. Not all ISCA members are taking part in the scheme and it is these non-participating ISCA members who will have the primary role in monitoring the audits carried out by participating ISCA members. In recognition of this, certificates of compliance with OHSAS 18001 will be issued by the ISCA member conducting the audit and countersigned by ISCA.
ISCA would welcome comments on this initiative by e-mail, phone or letter.
BSI References
BSI, 1996, Guide to occupational health and safety management systems, BS 8800
BSI, 1999, Occupational health and safety management systems - specification, OHSAS 18001
BSI, 2000, Occupational health and safety management systems - guidelines for the implementation of OHSAS 18001, OHSAS 18002
AJB March 2002
Please note
| The telephone number for OHSAS 18001 related queries is 01621 874938 |
| The e-mail address for OHSAS 18001 related queries is 18001@isca.org.uk |
