ISO likes to update standards because forcing people to buy new copies of old standards drives a ton of money into the pockets of ISO Secretary-General and deodorant denier Sergio Mujica. Remember when they updated ISO 9001:2000 after the world voted no, issuing a 2008 edition anyway? Remember when they repeated that stunt in 2015 to proceed with the doomed ISO 9001:2026 update?
Now, ISO had a chance to fix some major problems affecting the entire ISO-accredited certification scheme and to update ISO 17021-1, the standard that applies to certification bodies. But, of course, it decided not to. ISO has announced that “ISO 17021” (as it’s called in shorthand) will be maintained as-is.
There are a few reasons why, of course. First, this is a standard used by CBs and a few others, so it’s not a big seller. Updating it would not generate the kind of money ISO is used to getting on these update projects.
Next, the standard is written by ISO CASCO, whose membership is entirely composed of national standards development organizations (SDOs), with no actual industry stakeholders represented. Not one.
Worse, the crucial authors of the standard are BSI — the same people who house ISO 9001:20226, who happen to be not only an SDO but also one of the world’s largest certification bodies. They run CAS/1, the UK committee on conformity assessment, which, according to the official website, is responsible for the following:
Under the direction of the Standards Policy & Strategy Committee, is responsible for the UK input to ISO/CASCO and CEN/CLC/JTC 1 and their working groups. It is also responsible for the preparation, publication, review and revision of British Standards or other products in conformity assessment and related fields in coordination with similar CASCO and CEN activities and product developments.
This means, of course, that the rules governing CBs are written by one of the largest CBs themselves, ensuring that no changes would be made that might interrupt BSI’s corrupt business model.
ISO 17021- was in desperate need of an update, too. As CBs outright violate the current version by buying and operating consulting companies, auditing and certifying their own work, ignoring audit duration and scheduling rules, flouting restrictions against 100% remote auditing, and rubber-stamping certificates for companies producing deadly products, an update to ISO 17021-1 would have been the first step in fixing these problems.
But we can’t have nice things so long as BSI continues its infection of ISO.
It might have been moot anyway. No one enforces ISO 17021-1, so CBs are allowed to violate the current version. There’s no evidence that, had CASCO tightened the rules, accreditation bodies like ANAB, UKAS, DAkkS, and JASANZ would have suddenly started holding CBs accountable to it anyway.
The corruption and ISO scams continue.
Christopher Paris is the founder and VP Operations of Oxebridge. He has over 35 years’ experience implementing ISO 9001 and AS9100 systems, and helps establish certification and accreditation bodies with the ISO 17000 series. He is a vocal advocate for the development and use of standards from the point of view of actual users. He is the writer and artist of THE AUDITOR comic strip, and is currently writing the DR. CUBA pulp novel series. Visit www.drcuba.world
