Briefing: UKAS accreditation—building better standards

Since its inception in 1995, United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS) has been the sole body recognised by UK Government to assess and accredit organisations that provide certification, testing, inspection and calibration services.

Accreditation gives any evaluation business an immediate edge. An accredited business can show its customers it has been successful at meeting the requirements of international accreditation standards and provides a level of proof that particular standards and processes are in place.

As recognition of having met the standards, UKAS accreditation also differentiates a business from its non-accredited competitors and removes any prejudice that an in-house testing service might be biased. This tangible value has encouraged many establishments to specify the use of UKAS-accredited organisations in their contracts. It could be, for instance, that contractors must be certified by a UKAS-accredited certification body, or that testing work is undertaken by accredited laboratories.

As an example, the Highways Agency has almost 20 sector scheme documents for quality management in highways works that specify the use of accredited certification to underpin the quality of the works being provided, from vehicle restraint systems and lighting columns to surface dressings, bitumen and asphalt.

The Agency has reinforced quality in highways works even further by stipulating that if the value of a project exceeds £5 million, a UKAS-accredited testing laboratory must be provided on site. This carries many advantages, not the least of which is a reduction in turn-around times for test results.

With increasing time and budget pressures within the engineering industry, having a testing laboratory on site can offer very timely relief. Current examples of projects with a UKAS-accredited testing laboratory on site include BAA's £4·2 billion Heathrow Terminal 5 project and Qatar Petroleum / Exxon Mobil's £1 billion liquefied natural gas terminal at South Hook, Milford Haven.

UKAS-accredited organisations have been assessed against internationally recognised standards to demonstrate their competence, impartiality and performance capability. UKAS will establish that the body

• is impartial

• is technically competent to do the work in question

• has the resources and facilities that are appropriate and sufficient for the work

• actually performs to the required standard

• is capable of sustaining the required level of performance.

UKAS accreditation is a formal recognition of competence and ensures that the data provided by the body are ‘fit for purpose’. Once accredited, the body is monitored annually and reassessed every four years so that confidence in its accredited status can be maintained.

Accreditation is used worldwide. In most developed economies there is a body similar to UKAS. UKAS is the UK signatory to European and international agreements that recognise equivalence of results provided by accredited organisations in other signatory countries. These agreements facilitate the removal of technical barriers to trade, enabling goods to move freely in international markets. It is important for goods and services tested in or provided from the UK to be accepted worldwide without the need for additional evaluation and, increasingly, accreditation is the means chosen to achieve this.

Organisations which achieve UKAS accreditation have demonstrated that they fulfil stringent international requirements and have the resources and facilities appropriate to provide and sustain a reliably independent, impartial and competent service—all qualities that will give added confidence to civil engineering specifiers, project managers and construction companies alike.