Safeguarding Impartiality

To provide assessment and certification of management systems, HDAA is required by international standards (ISO/IEC 17021) to have in place a Committee to safeguard the impartiality of our functioning. We have established a Committee comprised of independent persons who have experience of disability and an assessment trained service user.

Impartiality Committee

The purpose of the committee is:

• to assist in developing the policies relating to impartiality of its certification activities;
• to ensure the consistent objective provision of certification activities;
• to advise on matters affecting confidence in certification; and
• to conduct a periodic review of the impartiality of our assessment, certification and decision making.

We have formalised terms of reference for the committee and the committee has been authorised by our Health and Human Services Manager to ensure:

• no single interest predominates;
• the committee has access to necessary information enabling it to fulfil its functions; and
• the committee can take confidential independent action.

As the committee develops we will ensure that it is balanced and includes other interested parties such as a service provider representative.

The current members of the committee are:

• Paul Harpur
• Jill O’Brien
• Allison Rahman

How to raise an Impartiality Concern

Impartiality Concerns may be raised by contacting HDAA as described in the our Impartiality Concern Process. Where the concern is required to be managed directly by the Committee, you can contact the Chair via the email address shown in the Impartiality Concern Process document, noting for the Chair’s attention.