Is it normal for an auditor to request a copy of our Food Safety and Quality Manual and our HACCP plan a month BEFORE the audit?

Hi, is it normal for an auditor to request a copy of our Food safety and Quality Manual and our HACCP plan a month BEFORE the audit?

Oh and this is to be sent to her trainee who is accompanying her.

Hi, is it normal for an auditor to request a copy of our Food safety and Quality Manual and our HACCP plan a month BEFORE the audit?

 

Oh and this is to be sent to her trainee who is accompanying her.

If I understand correctly, the trainer (who is the Auditor that will do your audit) is requesting that you send the trainee (the person shadowing) the documentation.

This is a unusual request.

Yes.  I just feel really uncomfortable about it.  I worry that if we refuse the auditor will see it as a sign we have something to hide and come down hard on us.  

We are a seasonal company and only operate 3 months a year.  We have yet to hold our annual review of these documents as we do this as close to the start of our season as possible.  So they will be getting information that will likely change.   I don't know what to do.  I wonder if i should contact the CB

They would not come down hard on your company - it does not work that way.

Yes, get a clarify from the CB.

We have lots of auditors ask for the HACCP plan in advance of the audit - I wouldn't consider that part at all unusual.
Requesting the full Manual is a bit unusual though, and anyone other than a certification body would get a straight "no". As per Glenn's advice I'd speak with your CB about that part.

Our auditors have asked to see our Internal Audit schedule and the minutes of our last review meeting prior to our first S&D Audit on Thursday this week.

I wouldn't worry about documents changing between now and the audit date; the auditor should be aware of that possibility. The below extract is from the BRC FS Standard (page 5 of Interpretation Guidelines) though it leaves the area of which "information" is reasonably requested fairly open. Still worth clarifying with the CB though to confirm.

The auditor/certification body shall have confirmed to the company the time of arrival on site and may have provided an outline of the plan of the audit schedule. The duration of the audit, although planned in advance, will depend on the activities on the day, but it may be shortened by a well-organised site and information provided in advance as requested by the certification body.

The auditor will start with an opening meeting, which all the relevant company personnel (including the most senior production or operations manager on site) need to attend, to outline how the audit will be undertaken. This will enable agreement and organisation in terms of:

• staff who need to be available to discuss specific aspects
• documents that need to be provided
• rooms that need to be provided (e.g. consider where records are stored and how they can be supplied to the auditor)
• logistics to ensure that equipment, such as protective clothing, is provided.

The auditor is likely to require background details on the company and the process before any site tour, and may therefore look through a number of documents, including:

• company quality policies
• organisation structure
• Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) documents.

I've had requests of this nature from other auditors (and made them myself) but never that far in advance and never from BRC.  The timing particularly seems unusual.  It would be worth clarifying how this will be used?  Is the trainee intending to do some coursework on it?  The CB should be able to advise on whether a month ahead is reasonable as potentially it permits a much more thorough audit than a day in advance and skim reading on the train en route.

Sending your HACCP plan to the auditor seems pretty standard but the training process is internal to your CB, let them share that information internally. As far as the whole FSQM? That seems quite extreme, unless of course it shortens your audit by a day and they're willing to discount your fee... Not very likely though. They might also be using it as a practical training tool for the shadowing trainee auditor. As Glen said, get clarification from your CB and you can also email your auditor for an explanation of the purpose for the request. Once you have the why's and wherefore's you can decide whether or not you supply the requested information. You can also wait until closer to the audit to submit the information in case there is a change. Our auditors usually request this a week or so before the audit unless it's unannounced.

Hi!

We had only one audit until now, but by then, our auditor requested us some docs before the audit (mainly HACCP and internal audits), so that he would have time to examine them beforehand. We informed him that the documents may not be final, thus changes could be made, and he was fine with it. (I trust he wanted to see how far we were and have an idea of what he would find the day of the official audit - probably that also helped to shorten the time at our facility).

So I would say it is not that unusual... 

(Maybe he/she is requesting the full Manual to show it to the trainee, so that this person is aware of what is / contains a Manual?)

I am naturally suspicious of such requests as being discussed but the net result seems to me that you are, in advance, partially doing some of the Auditor's job for them. Forewarned is Forearmed. :smile:

I suppose it may depend on whether this is a first audit or how confident you are of the content being submitted but, in addition to previous comments, I have always initially fallen back on  "Due to Internal Confidentiality Policy, I am obliged to receive permission from "Head Office" before proceeding with yr request ..........."