About
About IUCB
The International Union for Certification and Benchmarking accredits certification bodies, registers auditors and approves training providers. It keeps a record of each certificate it issues, which anyone can check by number.
What IUCB does
Four areas of work
Accreditation of certification bodies
Bodies that certify management systems are assessed against the relevant ISO/IEC conformity-assessment standard and any sector-specific requirements for the standards in scope. Accreditation is kept under surveillance while it is valid.
Registration of auditors
Auditors are registered at Associate or Lead grade for each standard, on the basis of their training, their audit experience and an assessment.
Approval of training providers
Providers are approved to run courses in accredited standards. A participant who meets the course's pass rule receives a certificate naming the course and the provider.
Laboratories
Accreditation of testing and calibration laboratories against the relevant ISO/IEC conformity-assessment standard. Laboratories apply as a kind of certification body.
Impartiality
How decisions are kept fair
These safeguards apply to every application, in every programme.
- Assessment and decision are separate
- The people who decide on an application did not carry out its assessment.
- Conflicts are declared
- Assessors and decision-makers declare any link to an applicant, and take no part where there is one.
- The criteria are published
- Every applicant is assessed against the same published scheme rules and standards.
- Decisions can be appealed
- An applicant may appeal a decision, and anyone may complain. Neither is handled by the people involved.
The seal
Five words, and what they mean in practice
- Independence
- Decisions are taken by people who did not assess the applicant.
- Integrity
- Every certificate can be checked, and a withdrawn one shows as withdrawn.
- Unity
- One set of rules for every body, auditor and training provider.
- Competence
- Assessments are made by qualified assessors, against published criteria.
- Benchmarking
- Requirements follow the ISO/IEC conformity-assessment standards.
Apply, or ask a question
Applications are made online, one form per programme. For anything else, write to us and the team that handles it will reply by email.