Kay, Andrew et al.,

It has been brought to my attention that there is a new ‘Accredited Assessor’ posted on the TSL, namely KI!

I have to say, this causes great surprise and great concern, firstly as one with a deeply-vested interest in KI and secondly as an accredited assessor.  There are a few significant ethical problems about this (quotes below taken from the TSL entry), amongst which are:

1) How can KI’s ARB perform an unbiased assessment of itself in order to find itself worthy of accreditation UNDER PRESENT ARRANGEMENTS?

2) IF KI were to perform an assessment under the present operational arrangements, wouldn’t review by the ARB also present a massive conflict of interest (I note that the ARB has expressly required, as a unique condition of its accreditation, that Zygma performs and gets client approval of an Impartiality Risk Identification prior to each assessment.  Why wouldn’t this be applied in this case, and what would be the outcome)?

3) Is this posting based on self-attestation (“Our internal auditors have undertaken a rigorous assessment of their skills, competencies and qualifications” – my emphasis)?

4) Where did its assessors gain their experience performing assessments under present arrangements, as claimed (“Each [auditor] is experienced in Kantara Initiative’s existing assurance process”)?

5) Until now TSL postings have been diligently arranged in alphabetic order – in which alphabet does ‘G’ conveniently come after ‘Z’?

This appears to be incredibly precipitous, one can only assume it being based on the expectation of accreditation under IS17065 at some future point (“and also in audits, assessments and evaluations in line with the ISO 17065 process” - what is the present relevance of IS17065?

And what is the relevance of “We also undertake certification for the UK DIATF” if there is a separate UK-facing TSL – it doesn’t fall within the scope of assessments for which the ‘US’ TSL is published?  In fact, this shouldn’t be the ‘US’ TSL, it should be the ‘International’ TSL.

I would urge the immediate withdrawal of this entry in the TSL.  I don’t believe that it does Kantara Initiative any credit whatsoever.

Richard G. WILSHER
CEO & Founder,  Zygma Inc.
www.Zygma.biz
+1 714 797 9942