Definitions of audits
Introduction:
As management system auditors, we must always keep in mind that an audit is not a prosecution of culprits, this is the way to avoid that our auditees feel intimidated and create antibodies against our work. Otherwise, by failing to open the interviewees, our audits may not achieve the necessary depth and may not detect system failures and may not meet its objective, to detect deviations from the audit criteria.
The development of this module will be mainly based on the International Standard ISO 19011: 2002, Guidelines for the audit of quality and / or environmental management systems. This standard annulled and replaced 6 standards related to audits, 3 of quality and 3 of environment.
FIGURE 1. Standards replaced by ISO 19.011: 2002.
ID
Title of the Standard
ISO 10.011-1: 1990 ISO 10.011-2: 1991 ISO 10.011-3: 1991
ISO 14.010: 1996 ISO 14.001: 1996
ISO 14.012: 1996
Guide for the audit of quality systems, Part 1. Audits.
Guide for the audit of quality systems. Part 2. Qualification criteria for quality system auditors.
Guide for the quality system audit. Part 3. Administration of audit programs.
Guide for environmental auditing: General principles.
General guidelines for environmental auditing. Audit procedures. Environmental management system audit.
General guidelines for environmental auditing. Qualification criteria for environmental auditors.
Until now, a specific standard has not been mentioned for the audits of the occupational health and safety management system, this is because the OHSAS 18001 standard in its bibliography only refers to the guideline standards for the quality system audit.
Thus, ISO 19011, Guidelines for quality and / or environmental management system audits, is also suitable for occupational health and safety management systems.
Figure 3. Evidence definitions and audit criteria.
Audit Evidence: Records, statements of fact, or any other information that is relevant to the audit criteria and is verifiable.
Note; The audit evidence can be qualitative or quantitative.
Audit criteria: set of policies, requirements or requirements.
Note: The audit criteria are used as a reference against which objective evidence is compared.
The audit findings: These are the results of the evaluation of the audit evidence collected against the audit criteria.
Audit conclusions - This is the result of an audit, provided by the audit team after considering the audit objectives and all audit findings.
Using these four definitions, we will try to better understand the definition of audit.
The auditor, who has the necessary independence from what he audits, carries out the audit process in a systematic and documented way, in order to obtain evidence such as records, statements of fact and any other «information» to evaluate against the set of policies., procedures or system requirements allow it to conclude the degree of compliance that the management system has in relation to what it has promised to fulfill.
Other definitions that appear in the standard are:
Audit Client: This is the organization or person requesting an audit.
Audited: Organization that is audited.
The audit team: is one or more auditors that carry out an audit, with the support, if necessary, of technical experts.
Technical Expert: is the person who contributes specific knowledge or experience to the audit team.
Audit program: it is the set of one or more audits planned for a determined period of time and directed towards a specific purpose.
Audit plan: is the description of the agreed activities and details of an audit.
Scope of the audit: it is the extension and limits of an audit.
Competence: are the personal attributes and demonstrated aptitude to apply knowledge and skills.
The above are the definitions provided by ISO 19.011, other definitions that are required will be delivered in a timely manner.
The ISO 19011 standard establishes 3 principles referring to auditors and 2 referring to audits. Adherence to these principles is a prerequisite for providing audit findings that are relevant and sufficient, and to allow auditors to work independently of each other, to reach similar conclusions in similar circumstances.
The principles regarding auditors are:
- Ethical conduct: the foundation of professionalism.
Trust, integrity, confidentiality and discretion are essential to audit.
Fair presentation: the obligation to report truthfully and accurately.
The audit findings, conclusions and reports accurately and truthfully reflect the audit activities. Significant obstacles encountered during the audit and unresolved divergent opinions between the audit team and the auditee are reported.
Due professional care: the application of due diligence and judgment when auditing. Auditors proceed with due care, according to the importance of the task at hand and the trust placed in them by the audit client and other interested parties. An important factor is having the necessary competence.
The principles that follow refer to audits, which by definition must be independent and systematic.
- Independence: the basis for the fairness of the audit and the objectivity of the audit findings.
Auditors are independent of the activity being audited and are free from bias and conflict of interest. Auditors maintain an objective attitude throughout the audit process to ensure that the audit findings and conclusions will be based only on the audit evidence.
- Systematic. Evidence-based approach: The rational method to reach reliable and reproducible audit conclusions in a systematic audit process.
The audit evidence is verifiable. It is based on samples of the available information, since an audit is carried out over a limited period of time and with finite resources. The proper use of sampling is closely related to the confidence that can be placed in the audit findings.
It should be reiterated that compliance with the 5 principles ensures that auditors working independently can reach similar conclusions in similar circumstances.
