The difference between UKAS and non-UKAS certification
When a company achieves ISO certification, it is an achievement that is shared across the business and provides assurance to both yourselves and your clients that you conform to quality, environmental, AI or health & safety standards.​
But what if you provided your certificate to your client and they turned your business down or rejected your tender because the certificate was not provided by a UKAS accredited certification body?​
In todays market, there are a variety of companies who can provide certificates for compliance tovarious ISO standards however they themselves are not a UKAS certified body.
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UKAS are the UK Governments only accreditation body and are the only organisation that can accredit companies to be a Certification Body (CB).
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A Certification Body will be assessed by UKAS annually with a renewal process every four years. This ensures that the Certification Body is correctly assessing businesses to be ISO compliant.
In short, if your business is assessed by a non-UKAS accredited body, there is no assurance that the process has been completed correctly, impartially and thoroughly. It is possible that you may be assessed to an older version of the standards that have been withdrawn.
These businesses may issue certificates for longer than the standard 3-year term, with some examples seen of ten years. Businesses will often not accept non-UKAS accredited certification body certificates.​
At Anacruses, we can assist you with being compliant to the standards, but we will only recommend that you use an accredited Certification Body if you move to certification. We can recommend Certification Bodies which you can check at accredited via the UKAS website.
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If cost is an issue, we can prepare you for certification, raising your business to the required standards, without putting you forward for certification. This provides you with the correct tools, with the option to move forward to certification in the future.