"The International Standard for Certification Bodies"

ACPA becomes Certified Compliant with ISO 17024

The Association of Certified Project Accountants, incorporating the Association of Certified Corporate Executive Accountants, are pleased to announce that the ISO Certification project has drawn to a successful conclusion with the formal Registration and Certification by the ISO Scope International Standards Partnership.
The project commenced in September 2008 with a rigorous review of policies, procedures, and workflows. ACPA completed the internal assessment during January 2009, before engaging the ISO Scope Partnership to complete the independent third party Assessment, Audit, and Certification. The ISO Scope Partnership formally issued the ISO 17024 Certification to ACPA on September 9th 2009.

“Although gaining ISO 17024 Certification meant a lot of hard work for us, we’re all very pleased with the result, and those involved can be justifiably proud of this achievement. Going through this process meant that we had to take a long hard look at what we do and how we do it. It wasn’t an easy project because the impact to our business as usual operation was noticeable, although the ISO Scope Consultants really helped to keep us on the right track. We’re now better positioned to move forward with our 2020 vision, and the next phase starts on Monday. Again congratulations to the Team and thanks.”

Robert Collings, ACPA Executive Chairman and CEO - September 11th 2009.

ISO 17024 Explained

ISO 17024 is the International benchmark for personnel certification schemes.

The International Standard aims to harmonize the various procedures used around the world for certifying the competence of personnel in different professions.

It provides a global benchmark for certification schemes to ensure that they operate in a consistent, comparable and reliable manner worldwide, thus establishing an environment for the mutual recognition of schemes and facilitating the global mobility of personnel.

Today, thousands of certification programmes exist for personnel in practically every industry, in particular in the service sectors, from healthcare personnel, Accountants, and financial planners to safety professionals and non destructive testing operators, as a means of demonstrating their professional ability. One of the functions of the body carrying out certification of persons is to undertake an independent assessment of education/training, experience, demonstrated knowledge and skills applicable to the area for which the certification is awarded. This process is known as a "certification scheme".

The standard, ISO/IEC 17024, Conformity assessment - General requirements for bodies operating certification of persons, provides a uniform set of guidelines for organizations managing the qualifications and certification of persons, including procedures for the development and maintenance of a certification scheme. It is designed to help bodies operating certification of persons conduct well-planned and structured evaluations using objective criteria for competence and grading in order to ensure impartiality of operations and reduce any conflict of interest.

"To be able to choose a person with the competence needed, or for a person to be able to demonstrate specific competencies, the tool of certification under a defined certification scheme may be particularly useful," said Dr. Thomas Facklam, Chairman of the International Accreditation Forum (IAF) and convenor of the working group that developed the new standard. "Therefore, ISO/CASCO together with IEC (International Electro-technical Commission) decided to establish a new competence standard defining the requirements for bodies operating the certification of persons."

ISO/IEC 17024 addresses the structure and governance of the certifying body, the characteristics of the certification programme, the information required to be available to applicants, and the recertification initiatives of the certifying body.

"ISO/IEC 17024 should be the basis for the recognition of the certification bodies and their certification schemes, in order to facilitate their acceptance on the national and international levels. Only the harmonization of the system for developing and maintaining certification schemes for persons can establish the environment for mutual recognition and the global exchange of personnel," further noted Dr. Facklam.

The standard is the work of ISO's Committee on conformity assessment (CASCO) working group 17, Certification of persons, in partnership with the IEC (International Electro-technical Commission).