ISO 17024:2012

ISO/IEC 17024:2012 contains principles and requirements for a body certifying persons against specific requirements, and includes the development and maintenance of a certification scheme for persons. 

This standard can be used by Certification Bodies to develop recognised personnel competency frameworks to meet specific industry needs. The standard identifies the core requirements of any assessment framework intending to align to these ISO based requirements and it is the responsibility of the Certification Body to integrate this with relevant sector guidelines and legislation., 

It is essentially an ISO based alternative to a qualification - with one big difference........ 

Certification schemes developed against ISO/IEC 17024:2012 require recertification, in much the same way as with any other ISO standard. Candidates certificated against frameworks developed in alignment with this standard must therefore maintain their competency over time- in stark contrast to the lifetime certification approach offered by Higher Education/ Vocational training. In safety critical sectors particularly, this additional level of rigour is essential to maintain the highest safety standards. Knowledge has a shelf life and it is inappropriate to assume that a person graduating 20 years ago is as current as a person graduating today. Use of this standard overcomes this shortcoming. 

Certificated candidates become accountable in the form of continued certificate ownership.