Issue Summary:
Where the current year EA believes the previous year DEC was inaccurate. Speed up the resolution of such situations, or what an EA/Accreditation Scheme (Scheme) does during the resolution period.
Convention:
If the current year EA believes the previous year DEC was inaccurate, then the EA should notify their Scheme (for escalation to the previous year EAs Scheme), and wait for a period of 25 working days (see Note 1) for the previous year DEC to be verified. Unless the previous year DEC is confirmed to be defective within the verification period, the current year EA will simply lodge with the available data.
If the previous year DEC is confirmed as defective within the period, the previous year EAs Scheme must take the appropriate steps outlined by the Scheme Operating Requirements
(SOR) for defective certificates before the renewal certificate is lodged (see Note 2).
If it is confirmed that the previous year DEC was defective, subsequent to the verification
period, then the previous year DEC needs to be replaced. There will be no requirement for the current year EA to update and re-lodge the current year’s DEC with the revised data from the previous year’s DEC; however they are encouraged to do so. This way, the error would in most cases be corrected in the following year’s assessments.
Note 1:
Period selected in accordance with SOR guidelines, which allows 15 working days for an EA to respond to an audit request. The additional 10 days allows a reasonable period for the various contact that is required between parties and the actual Quality Assurance (QA) process.
Note 2:
Section included to prevent a contravention with current SOR guidelines in reference to
defective certificates. This is the only situation where an EA is not able to lodge with the
previous year data, as it has already been confirmed as incorrect.
Mike Gordon
Comments