Accreditation hits the mark

An increasing amount of "proof" is being required of both the timber trade and its customers, to show that what they are manufacturing and/or selling is actually what it says it is and that it meets certain requirements for consistent "quality" - whatever that may be.

There has always - of course - needed to be an element of "trust" in anyone's dealings with anyone else (the maxim of the law is "Caveat emptor"). But with the costs of goods and raw materials being what they are these days, more and more people are resorting to litigation when things don't turn out as they expected: and that in itself is a costly and also time-consuming process, which we at TFT Woodexperts are getting involved in, with increasing regularity.

Perhaps because of this, or perhaps because of pressures from local authorities and others wanting proof of sustainability via the likes of FSC and PEFC, it appears that there is now a greater emphasis on the need for some sort of "compliance" with standards, or proven levels of quality, than there was in the past.

In respect of product certification, some things have been with us for a long time, of course. The classic example is strength graded structural timber, which has - by law - required "proof" of its validity since the Building Regulations were amended in the late 1980s.

At that time, there was only the TRADA Certification mark to put onto "stress graded timber" (this has evolved into the Q-Mark, which is seen on all manner of other products - not all of them timber). But now there are other certification marks to be found on timber products - including TFT's own Diamond Mark, which was registered as a certification mark with the Intellectual Property Agency in 2012.

"Proof of compliance" - with either standards or processes - can usually take one of three distinct forms. A company can do no more than "self certify", by the simple expedient of declaring that its services, or its products, comply with the relevant requirements, in their own opinion. And for some, that is as much as they feel they need to do.

The second "level" is for an independent, third-party certifier to check the company's paperwork procedures, or its manufacturing processes, and then make some sort of declaration that they have been independently audited, and that everything is as it should be so the company's products or services can be given an unbiased "stamp of quality".

Although it is the case that many British Standards - including those for scaffold boards and tiling battens - do not actually insist on any timber product being certified by an independent third party, examples of "self certification" can still be found out there.

It is also the case that those independent certifiers themselves do not - as a matter of course - need to be independently vetted, to show that they are acting correctly. It can be seen as a desirable thing, although not, in most cases, a legal requirement, that a certifier should also be "accredited". This is a case of "Who is checking the checker?"

At TFT, we are going through the (rather painful) process of accreditation with UKAS (UK Accreditation Service) in order to demonstrate to our clients that the TFT Diamond Mark is doing what it is supposed to do: give to their own customers an assurance of quality.