IMPARTIALITY PRINCIPLES
BSCIC’s Impartiality Management decisions are based on objective evidence obtained during Audit/Inspection/Validation and Verification, not on the basis of bias or prejudice caused by influence of different interests of individuals or other involved parties. Threats to impartiality are permanently identified, reviewed and controlled by the Advisory Committee for Safeguarding Impartiality.
BSCIC’s Impartiality decisions are assured by independence of staff, competence of auditors/surveyors/validators and verifiers, exercising due professional care in conducting the audits/inspections/validation and verification, collecting of objective evidence and independent certification/inspection/validation and verification decisions.
BSCIC have identified following impartiality principles to safeguard the management of impartiality.
Competence BSCIC adopts a policy of recruiting personnel who possess suitable qualifications and appropriate training and experience. It assesses the resources required to undertake each audit/inspection and assign suitably skilled staff to the work, provides a good distribution of skills to auditing/inspection tasks and enough persons for the audit/inspection.
Responsibility When considering responsibility to assess sufficient objective evidence upon which to base a certification decision, BSCIC refers to fairness, disinterestedness and factuality. Decisions are taken only when audit/inspection related information include everything that is necessary to determine or demonstrate the truth of an assertion.
Openness By implementing this principle, BSCIC establishes rules for providing public access or disclosure of non-confidential information by responding positively to requests for information, answer requests for information quickly and helpfully, giving reasons for not providing information where this is not possible, ensuring that there are clear and effective arrangements to deal with complaints and concerns about provided certification/inspection services and access to information, and that these arrangements are clearly publicized and effectively monitored.
Confidentiality BSCIC ensures that information is accessible only to those interested parties authorized to have access and specific rules are established for auditors/surveyors, administrative staff and other interested parties. Information related to customers is not used or disclosed for purposes other than registration of the management system certifications/third party inspections without the client’s explicit consent, or where there is legal justification to do so.
Responsiveness to complaints All complaints will be investigated and responded to quickly and within specified time targets. The complaint handling process recognizes the need to be fair to both the complainant and the organization or individual against whom the complaint is made and, if the complaint is found to be valid, reasonable effort will be made to resolve the complaint by appropriate measures.
BSCIC has identified it’s mechanism to achieve the performance of above principles into its Certification/Inspection processes and this is achieved by following practices.
Potential Threats Management of Risks to BSCIC Impartiality:
In order to continually provide the Impartial Services BSCIC has identified the following potential threats on its impartiality and addresses the prevention as Preventive Action:
A.1 self-Review:
• Application Process influenced by consultants:
• Contract Review Process:
A.2 Self-Interest:
A.3 Familiarity (or trust):
A.4 Intimidation:
• Consultants may try choosing an Auditor/Surveyor.
• Consultants may be present at the time of audit/inspection and may intimidate Auditors/Surveyors.
A.5 BSCIC does not accept application for ISO Standard or other schemes Registration from a CB/IB who is already providing that ISO Standard or other schemes. In one straight forward way, we don’t certify our competitors i.e. Certification Bodies/Inspection Bodies.
A.6 BSCIC does not provide any Consultancy to any kind of organization or “Internal Audit Service to its any Registered / Applicant Organization”.
BSCIC has ensured that its Senior Management Personnel is inducted / recruited considering they don’t have a Consultancy Background at least in present or in last 2 years.
A.7 BSCIC does not market or offer its services as being linked with the activities of an organization that provides consultancy nor it promotes any such organization to an applicant organization.
A.8 BSCIC applies suitable controls when its impartiality may be affected by any consultancy organization towards its clients or auditors/surveyors. Such controls are described in the Procedure PM032 Potential Risks and Controls (e.g. its paras 13, 17, 18, 2021)
A.9 BSCIC may accept applications for the conduct of the Internal Audits of the Clients however such clients are not considered for its Registration. This will be achieved by establishing quantifiable and measurable Quality and Business Objectives at relevant functions & levels within BSCIC.
These will be reviewed as a minimum annually and will be linked into the BSCIC Annual Management Review.
Chief Executive
10.06.2025