EA Certification Committee Meeting 2008

The 15th Meeting of the EA Certification Committee (EA CC) took place in Athens on 25th and 26th February 2008.

Adrienne Duff attended on behalf of INAB. The agenda and discussions covered a wide range of topics. In particular, the use of accreditation in the assessment of notified bodies formed an important part of the 2 day meeting with a workshop on this topic organised by the Greek Accreditation Body, EYSD run in conjunction with the meeting.
The program for the forthcoming IAF Technical Committee meeting was discussed at length and items of particular interest to EA identified.

A common theme of the meeting was the ongoing exchange of experiences with the implementation of ISO 17021.
Task force groups of the EA CC reported on activity since the last meeting. The Food Committee presented a document outlining the AB approach when assessing scopes for ISO 22000. This document will be circulated to members for comment and ballot. The ISMS Committee confirmed that the transition period for ISO 27000 is the same as that for ISO 17021 and that assessment of CBs will be to ISO 17021 and ISO 27006 after which time EA-7/03 will be withdrawn. The possibility of using ISO 14065 for the assessment of GHG Verifiers in future was also discussed.

Other technical issues discussed included a proposed transition plan for the introduction of ISO 9001:2008, the latest revision of EA-6/03, (the guidance for the Recognition of Verification Bodies under the EU ETS Directive) and flexible scopes.