9 replies to this topic

[Cheese89]

Hello Folks,

I would like to inquire about the obligations concerning the rejection of an Acting Lead for a BRCGS audit. We have an unannounced BRCGS audit scheduled in the upcoming months, and the Certification Body (CB) has requested the addition of an Acting Lead to conduct the main audit alongside the scheduled lead auditor. Management is dissatisfied with this change in auditors. Can we reject the addition of an Acting Lead, or is this decision solely at the discretion of the CB?

[Scampi]

I would reach out to your CB directly for the answer-------but check in the code, the answer may already be there

[G M]

It is worth reading your contract with your CB.  What you agreed to can be very different than what another CB could require.

[GMO]

Do you mean as in an auditor who is being trained?

 

In page 99 of the BRCGS standard it talks about how auditors may be accompanied by people training or be witnessed audits.

 

I don't see personally how you can refuse.  You may be able to ask not to have that situation but they would be within their rights to insist or if they don't do so, then you will have annoyed the CB.

 

We all have audits where there are auditors, witnesses and trainees from time to time.  We all assume it will be a tougher audit because whatever the auditor says there are two pairs of eyes and you're less likely to be able to talk someone out of a non conformity. But generally we all accept we occasionally have to take one for the team because with turnover in the food industry this will only continue.

 

And the CB will know that's what you're thinking if you say "can we not....?"

 

My view is suck it up.  Sorry.  Because if you don't, that's giving the auditor an insight into your company culture before they walk through the door...  (Sorry.)

[Scampi]

 

"And the CB will know that's what you're thinking if you say "can we not....?"

 

My view is suck it up.  Sorry.  Because if you don't, that's giving the auditor an insight into your company culture before they walk through the door...  (Sorry.)"

 

I can fully understand why the company is saying no............i agreed----once and will never say yes again--it was a nightmare and I had to argue 4 NCR due to "trainee" failures that the other auditor didn't step in and should have.   We pay to join, we should at the very least get some value for the money 

[GMO]

 

I can fully understand why the company is saying no............i agreed----once and will never say yes again--it was a nightmare and I had to argue 4 NCR due to "trainee" failures that the other auditor didn't step in and should have.   We pay to join, we should at the very least get some value for the money 

 

 

I think that's a valid point, if you do go ahead, you must step in and challenge.  This will be a hard few days for you, not going to lie.  But I've had about five or six over my career and while I did challenge interpretation several times on these kinds of audits (more than I normally would have) the result was still as expected and certainly no worse.

 

Auditors need to train.  That's a fact of life and an increasingly true one with the churn of staff in the food industry.

[jfrey123]

My very first SQF audit was with a trainee auditor being supervised by a senior auditor.  Horrible experience, I do not recommend it, but there's little you can do to refuse it.  You end up with the trainee try-harding in front of his boss, and a boss who wants to show off and throw the most abstract interpretations of code vs your program as part of the training.

 

Owner of that company ended up having us all leave the room so he could get into an argument with the two auditors.  His beef was that we aren't supposed to be audited by two people.  If the trainee is the one auditing us and signing the report, the senior person needs to focus on solely coaching his trainee instead of butting in with questions and making us defend programs/practices twice over.  Owner instructed us to only answer questions from the trainee auditor after that, and it was tense for the rest of the day, but they understood our owner's point.

[GMO]

Owner of that company ended up having us all leave the room so he could get into an argument with the two auditors.  His beef was that we aren't supposed to be audited by two people.  If the trainee is the one auditing us and signing the report, the senior person needs to focus on solely coaching his trainee instead of butting in with questions and making us defend programs/practices twice over.  Owner instructed us to only answer questions from the trainee auditor after that, and it was tense for the rest of the day, but they understood our owner's point.

 

ABSOLUTELY what you have to do.  I would rather pick up behaviour like that on site when they're there then say no beforehand.  Sorry.  But your owner did the right thing and they would have known that if they continued, the feedback would have reached the CB.  It's tough when you have this situation but I still think better than saying no.

[Tony-C]

Hi Cheese89,

 

Contractually you are obliged to accept shadow auditors (see below for details from the standard).

 

I would think that you are better off accepting the second auditor but get clarification from the certification body as to the reason for the second auditor and how this is going to be managed on site.

 

BRCGS Part III Audit Protocol

1.4 Company/certification body contractual arrangements

‘In particular it is a condition of certification to the scheme that:

The auditor(s) may be accompanied by other personnel for training, assessment or calibration purposes. This activity may include:

• training of new auditors by the certification body

• routine certification body shadow audit programmes

• witness audits by accreditation bodies

• witness audits by BRCGS’

Look up this section for more details, it is page 99 of the standard as per GMO’s post.

 

BRCGS Part IV Management and Governance

3 Technical Governance of the Standard

3.5 Calibrating auditors

‘A key component of the scheme is the calibration of auditors to ensure a consistent understanding and application of the requirements. All certification bodies are required to have processes to calibrate their own auditors. An essential element of the training and calibration of auditors is the witnessed audit programme. Auditors are observed during an audit and provided with feedback on the performance of the audit. In order to ensure consistency between certification bodies and for the purposes of accreditation, an audit may be witnessed by a BRCGS representative or accreditation body auditor. Guidelines apply to these activities to ensure that sites are not disadvantaged by the presence of two auditors. This process forms an essential part of the scheme and sites are obliged to permit witnessed audits as part of the conditions for certification.’

 

Also note sections 3.6 Feedback and 3.7 Complaints.

 

Kind regards,

 

Tony

[GMO]

Thanks Tony, I couldn't find that section.  Appreciate you finding it.  I thought it was frowned on to turn it down but it's clear now it's obligatory to accept.  So they're not really asking.