On many occasions, contracting authorities operating within Law 9/2017, November 8, or Royal Decree-Law 3/2020, February 4, require conformity assessment bodies to carry out audits or other types of assessments to inspect the compliance of the successful bidder with the contract's award conditions established in the specifications.

For its part, Article 128 of that law stipulates that such conformity assessment bodies must be accredited in accordance with the European Parliament and the Council’s Regulation (EC) No 765/2008, which, in the case of Spain, implies being accredited by ENAC.

For this reason, ENAC has developed a specific accreditation scheme for bodies carrying out this activity which is based on the UNE-EN ISO/IEC 17020 standard. In this link you can download the document that describes it.

Right now, the scheme is applicable to a limited number of areas where it is common for bidders to use this activity and where it is possible to define an expected technical competence. However, in the future, once experience is gained in this type of accreditation, and if there's shown to be a need, new areas will be included.

ENAC will hold an information session on this scheme and the accreditation process on Wednesday, January 26. For more information about the scheme and to register for free here, you can contact Luis Manuel Rodríguez.