NCR Auditor privileges

OK, so I had an auditor in training this year and was made aware before arrival (came with a technical manager which i also knew). The NCRs were issued and CA's completed AND accepted. This morning I get an email from the auditor and he has rewritten ALL of my ACCEPTED NCRs

I am looking for some guidance here before I lose my mind!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hi Scampi,

I'm sorry to hear about this.

Just to clarify...when you say "rewritten", do you mean they were no longer accepted?

BKMB

Nope, still accepted I guess, but changed..........in some instances completely

Like my CA was to simply remove something (previous person in my post had overwritten everything and I am scaling things back), and auditor changed it to "updated to included....documents attached!!!

If i've confused anyone I'm sorry

No new NCRs were issued, he has completely rewritten my corrective actions!!!!!

SQF

This adds more fuel to my "3rd party GFSI are a money grab for regulated commodities" argument

Scampi,

I guess the auditor changed the verbiage that you replied with you CAPAs and that is what is your concern. Some auditors tend to do these changes to summarize or align with the standard responses as the audit report is going to be reviewed by someone else (most probably Overseas).

As long as the content is similar, i dont see there could be any issues. However, if they changed the context of your response then you should inquire the auditor of the changes made. If the auditor is not helpful, I am pretty sure you will reach out to the CB ^_^

Hi Scampi,
I'd be pretty outraged by that. I'm very careful with phrasing and choice of words when responding to any NC, and in these modern times where our audit reports are routinely shared with customers I feel that the response we have given is important as it is directly considered as part of our customers' assessments of us as a supplier.

The pragmatist in me wants to say "never mind, the audit was signed off", but in reality I'd definitely challenge it with the CB - they're clearly happy with the content of your CAs as they've signed it off, so why the need to reword them?
Initially I'd make an innocent "has someone accidentally copied some text on top of our responses; can this be corrected please?" enquiry with them - I strongly suspect that is likely to get it fixed, otherwise it'd be time to raise a formal complaint.
The thing that some CBs seem to forget is that many standards require food businesses to assess their service providers and review their performance, and CBs are a service provider just like any other...

If you really want to wind them up you could send them a formal NC notice, but tempting though that could be I think it may make for an easier life not to do so ;)

If the innocent enquiry followed by a complaint route doesn't work then you could always try raising with the scheme owner directly - IMO they should be quite concerned that their CBs are bordering on misrepresenting information. If nothing else, it needs to be consistent with what's happened in reality as it's likely to be an area that the next auditor will focus on (certainly with BRC they pick up on the previous NCs in detail), and a new auditor will be reliant on the report so if what you present on site doesn't align with this they're going to conclude the peculiarity is at your end, which seems grossly unreasonable.

No, auditor accepted my CA plan. He then 2 weeks later asked for clarification on verbiage. No problem, done. Now today he has REWRITTEN CA to include changing some of my policies!

Example

Wrong CB was listed in the food legislation policy.......my CA was to remove as it really doesn't need to be listed there at all----accepted

Today, get back spreadsheet where auditor has rewritten CA to include UPDATING  food legislation to include new CB which is not what I said nor what was accepted

And NO I will not pay an invoice for this............I have already been billed for NCR close out

What I have done so far is emailed the auditor back asking why this is being requested after the NCR was accepted. I will keep everyone posted

BTW, I switched to what I believed to be a more reputable CB this year..........looks like they are all cut from the same cloth

Now today he has REWRITTEN CA to include changing some of my policies!

 

This should be unacceptable.

Email the auditor back and ask him for an explanation for the changes.

Response back from Auditor....

"I would just stay with the previous NCR that you sent me then.

I was just trying to write it formally"

I did ask for an explanation as to why things had been changed...........I guess this is all I'm going to get

So next time someone says "we would like to send a not yet certified auditor with a technical manager" just say NO!

I was trying to be accommodating as everyone has to learn, but this was a big price to pay for my kindness

Wow. Hopefully the auditor learned from this (unfortunately at your expense)!!!

Next time - don't write the witnessed auditor, file a complaint directly with the CB. What a wishy washy answer the auditor gave you.

Thanks for your comments Glenn, it was yours I was waiting on.

I will be filing a formal complaint as well. The auditor has emailed me twice since and keeps digging a grave. I really resent paying $$$$ kind of money for this treatment. 

I wanted to be sure I wasn't over reacting prior to losing my head with the actual CB.............and this one will be going to SQFI........if they don't know what's happening, they cannot control it