ABCB appoints new CEO

The ABCB are pleased to advised that they have appointed Chris Auger as their new Chief Executive. Chris took up post on

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ABCB – Seeking a New Chief Executive

Overview:

ABCB is the leading Trade Association for Accredited Certification Bodies operating in the United Kingdom. A part-time post of ABCB Chief Executive will be falling vacant at the end of June 2024 and a replacement is being sought. This varied and diverse role presents an exciting opportunity for the right candidate to play a critical leadership role in the UK certification industry.

The Chief Executive is required to represent and promote the interests of the members of the Association within the UK, European and International accreditation and conformity assessment communities. In particular the Chief Executive has to interface with the United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS), Government, the International Accreditation Forum (IAF), European co-operation for Accreditation (EA) and International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) at a senior level, and attend and influence numerous national, European and international committees.

The new Chief Executive will be able to lead the Association including setting out a clear vision and strategic objectives for membership retention and growth, raising the profile of the association, addressing the opportunities and challenges of digitalisation, co-ordinating initiatives to raise quality and competency standards of members, engage with key stakeholders in the UK and internationally to increase awareness of the value of accredited certification to deliver trust and confidence in the UK Quality Infrastructure.     

Additionally, the Chief Executive provides business and administrative leadership and support to ensure the financial viability and smooth running of the Association.

Terms:

The position is home based and involves travel in the UK and overseas.

Part Time Role: 22.5 hours per week (flexible based on meetings in the UK and internationally). The salary is £50,000 per annum, based on experience.

Knowledge, Skills and Experience:

Essential:

  • A UK citizen or UK resident with a current valid UK work visa
  • commercial acumen to enable growth in ABCB membership  
  • communication, administration and secretarial skills to facilitate Board and Membership Meetings as well as ongoing communications with ABCB members and stakeholders  
  • knowledge and understanding of conformity assessment practices and procedures
  • knowledge and understanding of certification standards (for example ISO 9001, ISO 14001)
  • knowledge of and experience in the application of conformity assessment standards (for example ISO /IEC 17021, ISO/IEC 17024, ISO/IEC 17065)
  • knowledge and understanding of the national, European and international accreditation infrastructure
  • knowledge and understanding of national and international standards development procedures
  • good communication skills, ability to influence as well as tact and diplomacy

Desirable:

  • experience of working in a leadership position for an accredited certification body
  • experience of accreditation assessments
  • experience of participating in national and/or international standards technical committees

To Apply:

If you are interested in applying for the role please send your CV or contact Steve Bennett at Hinton Recruitment Partners for further details: sb@hintonrp.co.uk

ABCB Celebrating 40 Years

Award wining ABCB is proud to celebrate its 40th year. Founded in 1984 in response to a UK Government request that CBs should work together to provide a collective input to the then newly established National Accreditation Council for CBs (NACCB). ABCB continues to be recognised by Government, UKAS, and a wide range of organisations as the lead UK trade association for nationally accredited third party CBs.

Our celebration culminates with lunch at the House of Commons in June thanks to our celebration partners UKAS, A CubeTIC, Amitivo, Cares, NQA, Advcanced Certification and Hinton Recruitment Partners.

ABCB is proud to continue to actively promote nationally accredited certification and work with government departments, trading standards, purchasers and specifiers, UKAS, IAF and EA and other stakeholders to promote its benefits. 40 years, a proud moment for ABCB and its members.

ABCB in Partnership with Croner

ABCB Announce Partnership with Croner to Offer Free Business Support to Members

ABCB Chief Executive Wayne Terry was delighted to announce another added value member benefit. ABCB has partnered with Croner who will provide a free Business Support Helpline. This is a fantastic service for those who don’t have their own staff in house, but also a great way to get a second opinion for those who do.

Services include a free Business Support Helpline, offering ABCB members advice on Employment Law, Health Safety and Commercial Legal matters Commercial Legal covers over 60 topics including commercial contracts, insolvency, data protection, and property law.

Wayne Terry stated, “this new service to members adds yet another truly valuable service to members helping them to manage their business and risk on a day-to-day basis”.

UNIDO Publish Remote Conformity Assessment Paper

The United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) is pleased to announce the launch of a publication titled “Remote conformity assessment in a digital world: Opportunities, challenges and implications for developing countries”.

The publication provides a high-level overview of how remote assessment/audit techniques have developed in recent years and applied in different conformity assessment contexts. It also highlights the associated benefits of such techniques along with the challenges and implications for the future. 

Quality Infrastructure is the combination of initiatives, institutions, organizations, activities, and people that help ensure products and services meet customers’ requirements. Conformity assessment is a central part of this important work as it links regulation, industry, and markets. Evidence shows that establishing a Quality Infrastructure can assist a nation in pursuing a development track in line with the Sustainable Development Goals.

Remote assessments/audits play a crucial role in the context of digital transformation of Quality Infrastructures around the world, with the global disruptions arising from the COVID-19 pandemic having accelerated this process and injected urgency into the adoption of new technologies. where the use of remote assessment techniques to ensure the continuity of conformity assessment and confidence in its outcomes became a strategic imperative.

The need to stay abreast of the latest developments to ensure that no country is left behind in the increasingly digitalized world of conformity assessment makes this publication relevant for developing countries and a wider audience. Pragmatic steps that can be taken to address this need are presented accordingly.

UNIDO remains committed to continuing its support to developing countries, assisting them in overcoming the challenges and making the most of the opportunities posed by the growing use of remote assessment techniques.

ABCB Receive Association of the Year Award

ABCB are delighted to announce that they are proud winners of the Association Awards 2021 for ‘Business Member Association of the Year’.

Wayne Terry, Chief Executive of ABCB said “we are absolutely delighted to have won this prestigious award, and we thank the Association of Executives and the judging panel for bestowing the award on ABCB. This is truly recognition of the commitment of all of our members in collaborative thinking for the betterment of all certification bodies and the UK quality infrastructure”.

TPS 74 – A Triumph in Collaboration

The big question facing the world of accreditation is what will the new normal look like when travel restrictions are lifted following the current COVID-19 pandemic.

Undoubtedly, during the pandemic the industry responded quickly and moved to remote auditing to ensure business and supply chains could continue. But what will happen once travel restrictions have been lifted, will we go back as we were before, or will we build on the lessons learnt in the past year or so?

With this mind ABCB approached UKAS who agreed to set up a joint task force under their Management Systems Certification Technical Advisory Committee to build upon and adapt the lessons learned into a more normal working environment, defining a framework for the provision of a blended approach to auditing that ensures the same level of confidence in accredited certification, whilst realising a more sustainable and flexible approach to its delivery.

This successful collaboration has produced UKAS TPS 74 – UKAS Guidance on the Use of a Blended Approach to Auditing for Management Systems by Certification Bodies, which has now been published.

Wayne Terry, ABCB Chief Executive said, “TPS 74 is a wonderful example of true collaboration and I want to thank UKAS for their foresight and cooperation and I also want to thank other stakeholders who contributed to this work, particularly IIOC and FCB who’s contributions were valuable to the overall outcome”.

Preferential Recruitment Services for ABCB Members

ABCB and HRP (Hinton Recruitment Partners) are delighted to announce their strategic alliance bringing preferential recruitment services to members of ABCB.

HRP offer a personal and transparent recruitment service, building long term partnerships and working as a resource partner to their clients.  HRP’s staff have extensive experience working within Certification and Testing sector and have a strong network within UKAS accredited and associated organisations as well as extensive recruitment experience.

Wayne Terry, Chief Executive of ABCB said “I am really excited to bring this added value to ABCB members, finding the right people in the quality infrastructure sector is never easy, so I’m delighted that ABCB members will be able to work with HRP. I’ve no doubt it will be of great advantage to help secure the right people for members organisations”.

HRP offer a range of preferential recruitment services to ABCB members that include:

Employer Services

  • General recruitment
  • Search & Selection – A more targeted approach to attracting individuals who can help improve and grow your business
  • Consultancy – With over 30 years recruitment experience HRP can offer advice and guidance around most recruitment scenarios and needs
  • Salary Benchmarking

Services for the Individual

The following services will be offered free of charge to individuals who have recently left the employment of, or individuals facing redundancy from an ABCB member.

  • Career Consultancy
  • CV & online profile advice, application strategy – how to widen prospects and general advice around career development and job hunting

Steve Bennett, HRP Director said “I would like to thank Wayne for the opportunity to work with him and ABCB members to offer a personal recruitment service.  Having worked in the sector for a number of years I am grateful for the opportunity to help the membership attract and retain individuals who can add value to their organisations.”

To find out more please contact Steve Bennett sb@hintonrp.co.uk or Wayne Terry wayne.terry@abcb.org.uk or visit https://www.hintonrp.co.uk/ or http://79.170.40.235/abcb.org.uk/

Collaboration – the Future of Audits Post-COVID-19

During the COVID-19 Pandemic we saw a dramatic change in the way audits were delivered in order to maintain accreditation and certification and to keep supply chains operational, necessity required the significant adoption of remote auditing in many countries around the world. There is no doubt that speed with which the industry adapted was in large part due to the support and guidance provided by the IAF family, and the swift collaboration between its membership groups, Accreditation Bodies and Certification Bodies alike.   

This rapid change has driven numerous innovations in remote auditing techniques, methodologies, and tools as well as a great deal of experience gained by the certification and accreditation community leading to fantastic advances and most of all lessons learned. Much of this was shared via the excellent IAF FAQ resource.

But post lockdown, what will the future of assessments look like? How will these learnings and benefits be utilised to improve their effectiveness and enhance the benefits of ISO standards to end users? Wayne Terry, Chief Executive of ABCB, thinks collaboration will shape the future as the quality infrastructure develop a collaborative approach to Blended Audits.

ABCB recently began discussions with UKAS to discuss the move back to “normality” as lockdown restrictions lift and in particular how the approach to remote auditing and the guidance around it will change to retain the benefits gained whilst at the same time maintaining the value and the integrity of accredited certification.

There is no doubt this is a very important topic facing all Accreditation Bodies and Certification Bodies, so with this in mind a joint task force was initiated by the UKAS Management System Certification Technical Advisory Committee involving other CB representative bodies and key stakeholders  to develop an agreed approach to what will become the new normal.

Naturally, the approach will need to ensure that the integrity of the audit process is maintained in line with the current framework of IAF guidance and mandatory documents. Although previous restrictions on remote audits (such as the 30% limit contained in ISO 27006,) have currently been relaxed there will need to be a review to facilitate the adoption of a more risk-based approach that takes into account the way individual clients deploy and maintain their systems and industry specific factors.

Although the origins of the project will initially focus on the UK, once complete, it is intended to take the output for discussion at regional level through EA and then onto IAF thus bringing all the various elements of the IAF together through collaboration to shape the future of audits post COVID-19.

Given the extent of collaboration and speed of action by the industry during this crisis, I am very hopeful that we can have an agreed approach ready as each part of the globe exits this difficult situation.