Electronic reporting  

UKAS customers will shortly be able to receive their assessment reports electronically. A new process designed for reporting UKAS assessments electronically is currently being trialled by UKAS staff.

In the new format, the outcome of the assessment is reported under six key headings of Scope, Organisation, Management, Evaluation Processes, Technical Competence and Impartiality & Integrity. The free-flowing style of the new format allows the assessment team to express the strengths and weaknesses of the assessed organisation and to link better their comments with the assessed organisation’s business processes. The feedback from customers suggests that they prefer the flexibility of the new system to the current system, which is based on reporting under the headings of the Standard.

A further feature of the new reporting process being trialled is the option for the customers themselves to close out certain types of nonconformities reported at assessment visits, without having to refer those to UKAS for verification. This option is available only where the organisation has a good track record and where the assessor has the confidence the organisation is capable of dealing with that issue within its own system. UKAS however reserves the right to check the closing out of such corrective actions at any time and will do so from time to time to maintain the confidence of the organisations’ ability to run its operations without unnecessary interventions by UKAS.

The trials are still continuing and it is expected that the option for receiving electronic reports will be available to all customers by July 2005.

The new process is outlined in the draft UKAS Publication Reporting UKAS Assessments.

If you have any comments on the new process please direct them to lal.ilan@ukas.com