4.5 Auditing
The international certification infrastructure exists to verify that organisations, products and services comply with standards (or normative documents). Accreditation bodies are generally government established and owned organisations (in New Zealand's case International Accreditation New Zealand (IANZ) and the Joint Accreditation System of Australia and New Zealand (JAS-ANZ). Accreditation Bodies accredit organisations (such as laboratories, inspection bodies and certification bodies) that in turn inspect, test, audit and certify compliance with standards or norms. Accreditation verifies the independence and competency of the applicant organisation. Accreditation Bodies operate according to the requirements of ISO Guide 61.
Certification Bodies (for products, services and systems) verify that organisations comply with standards (e.g. ISO 9001) or defined specifications. Certification Bodies operate according to the requirements of ISO Guide 62 (systems certification), and ISO Guide 65 (product certification). Inspection Bodies certify that products meet defined requirements - frequently safety related. Laboratories describe physical, chemical or microbiological attributes of specimens.
Certification can be "accredited" or "non-accredited", depending on the standard certified to (not all standards are recognised by accreditation bodies) and the certifier (accreditation is voluntary). In general, accredited certificates (or laboratory reports) provide a greater degree of confidence than non-accredited.
Accredited certification is known as third party certification; internally managed schemes may be first party certified where the auditor is employed by the organisation performing the certification. Some on-farm schemes are in fact first party audited (i.e. by the company or organisation themselves), and in general have poor credibility as a consequence.
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