SLAQ to recognise UKAS Accredited Certification

The ISO Forum of the Sri Lanka Association for Quality (SLAQ) in addressing the issue of credibility of certifications issued in Sri Lanka had taken many steps to create an awareness and educate those seeking certification. Following pressure exerted by the ISO Forum, certification bodies had ceased issuing non-accredited certifications especially on ISO 22000 (Food Safety Management), while still this practice is continued in other areas such as some sectors of ISO 9000.

The ISO Forum said that the major contributory factor is the demand for 'cheap certificates' from organisations seeking certification and the certifications bodies exploit this situation to increase their revenue. It is regrettable that such organisations seeking certification are not concerned with the integrity and credibility of the certificates they receive and also unaware of the losses they would incur without achieving the expected benefits of such certification.

It is a well known fact that these certifications had now become meaningless as these are issued freely by Certification Bodies who are more interested in commercial gains rather than helping organisations to improve.

At present these certifications had lost any marketing advantage as many organisations with questionable quality and another service had received certification. This had become a national issue with Sri Lankan organisations becoming noncompetitive internationally and also credibility of certificates in Sri Lanka will be lost in the eyes of international forum.

The only remedy for this situation, is the intervention by accreditation boards through their regular audits to control malpractices in the certification operations. However, this situation is further complicated that as many accreditation boards are also private organisations and as such they themselves look for commercial gains.

As such these private accreditation boards turn a blind eye for the unethical practices of certification bodies despite the fact that international guidelines clearly stipulates the impartial requirements of the accreditation bodies and certification bodies.

Considering this scenario, SLAQ will recognise and promote certification with internationally accepted and reputed accreditation services in Sri Lanka and for this purpose will be promoting certificates with accreditation from United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS).

This is operated under the UK Trade Ministry and recognised by the UK government as well as EUI and other agencies globally. This approach is expected to promote the integrity and usefulness of certification especially those based on ISO standards (9000, 14000, 22000, and 27000).

The United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS) is the national accreditation body in the United Kingdom with the Royal Crown as the emblem indicating the UK government recognition. Businesses recognise the importance of independent evaluation and it is important the certification has international recognition. UK governments encourage the best British Industries to receive UKAS accredited certification.