3.3 Relationship with Certification Bodies

3.3.1 The scheme owner shall ensure that it has contractual and enforceable arrangements with all Certification

Bodies that are approved to operate their scheme.

3.3.2 Scheme owners shall ensure that all Certification Bodies with which they have contractual arrangements are accredited. The scheme owner will act to ensure that the accreditation standard used by all national Accreditation Bodies for the scope of their scheme is consistent and, where appropriate, will facilitate a harmonised agreement on behalf of the contracted Certification Bodies.

The scheme owner, as part of their contractual arrangements with certification bodies, shall ensure that direct dialogue between the Scheme Owner and the Accreditation Body takes place in the event that a Certification

Body has had its accreditation withdrawn or suspended.

3.3.3The scheme owner shall ensure that all activities resulting in the issuing of certificates are delivered by Certification Bodies, which are accredited by Accreditation Bodies that are members of the International

Accreditation Forum (IAF) in compliance with ISO/IEC Guide 65 or ISO/IEC 17021:2006 (supplemented by ISO/TC 22003) and are signatories to the Multilateral Recognition Arrangement (MLA).

3.3.4The scheme owner shall ensure that the scope of accreditation of a Certification Body shall be precisely defined in terms of the category of application reference (e.g. product categories or services) of the conforming food safety scheme, including revision numbers and / or dates and is publicly available. Certification Bodies undertaking audits against food safety schemes, which have been found to be in compliance with this document, must have the named scheme included in their scope of accreditation.

3.3.5Under certain circumstances, the Certification Body may have an application for extension of their scope pending with an Accreditation Body. They must, however, have a current accreditation to ISO/IEC Guide

65 or ISO/IEC 17021 (supplemented by ISO/TC 22003). Written notification of such a circumstance from the Certification Body must be held and acknowledged by the scheme owner.