ENAC, the Spanish National Accreditation Body, has translated the ISO/IEC 17024 Guide "How to develop schemes for certification of persons" prepared by the International Standardization Organization (ISO).

The ISO/IEC 17024 standard contains requirements which a certification body must comply with in order to demonstrate that it is competent to certify professionals for a specific scope. The guide developed by ISO and translated by ENAC aims to be an aid for those organizations developing personnel certification frameworks. Specifically, the document is focused on explaining those requirements contained in clause 8 of the standard which provides information on each requirement's purpose:

• Certification framework categories.
• Certification system elements.
• Process requirements.
• Development and review of the certification framework.
• Ongoing review and validation of the personnel framework.
• Framework holder’s obligations.

The purpose of personnel certification is to measure the competence of professionals to carry out certain activities and, particularly in this case, to establish compliance with the requirements established by the scheme for the certification of persons. In this context, 'competence' must be understood as the set of knowledge, experience and skills required and demonstrated for effectively developing the assigned tasks.

In Spain, the activity was first focussed on the industrial field (non-destructive testing, welding, etc.) where various bodies have been accredited by ENAC for this type of certification for many years. Currently, accredited personnel certification has diversified, incorporating activities such as project management (civil engineering, R&D, software...) and building sustainability or others belonging to the gas installation or energy auditing regulated field.

At the moment, 14 the organizations wich carries out certification of person are accredited by ENAC according to the ISO 17024 standard.

You can download the Guide to ISO/IEC 17024  “How to develop schemes for certification of persons” here.