Neutrality Policy

Neutrality Policy

The Saudi Accreditation Center (SAAC) is the recognized national accreditation body for providing accreditation services to conformity assessment bodies, and it is an independent governmental accreditation body from all governmental conformity assessment bodies and is not affiliated with any other entities. The center provides its services in a manner that ensures the preservation of integrity, impartiality, and confidentiality in a non-profit manner. Since impartiality is one of the fundamental pillars of accreditation and of utmost importance in maintaining the trust expected by stakeholders from accreditation, and it is one of the requirements of the ISO/IEC 17011:2017 standard "Conformity assessment - Requirements for accreditation bodies accrediting conformity assessment bodies," which the center is committed to complying with and maintaining at all levels and stages of its operations through its commitment to involving representatives of stakeholders in its technical and advisory committees. The Saudi Accreditation Center is committed to formulating the center's policies and procedures in a non-discriminatory or biased manner, and making the center's services available to all applicants for accreditation who fall within the scope of its activities and meet the accreditation criteria. It is committed to non-discrimination between conformity assessment bodies, for example but not limited to (the size of the conformity assessment body, membership in an association or group, or the number of assessment bodies that have been accredited, etc.), and is committed that in the event of fraudulent behavior or falsification of information proven by confirmed evidence by conformity assessment bodies applying for accreditation, the center refuses to provide services to these bodies. It is also committed to not providing any technical support services or consultations to conformity assessment bodies or providing any conformity assessment services that could compromise the principles of integrity, impartiality, and maintaining confidentiality. It is also committed not to present its activities in a manner associated with consultancy and not to suggest - verbally or implicitly - in a way that implies that accreditation will be easier, simpler, faster, or less costly if a particular person or consulting entity is used. The center is also committed to ensuring that all individuals (center staff, committee members, assessors, and experts) who can influence the accreditation process act objectively and free from any commercial or financial pressures or any other undue pressures that may cast doubt on impartiality, and to take all necessary means to ensure that there are no personal relationships, mutual benefits, or any potential relationship or competitive situation between the center's individuals or their organizations in which they work and the conformity assessment body to be evaluated through their commitment to declare the nature of any relationship that links them to the body or any potential conflict of interest whenever it arises, and in the event of a relationship or conflict of interest, the person concerned is not allowed to participate in any stage of the accreditation process. The center assesses the potential risks to impartiality arising from its activities and identifies the relevant parties on an ongoing basis, including any conflict arising from its relationships or from the relationships of its individuals on an ongoing basis to ensure the protection of impartiality, through internal auditing, management review, and taking stakeholder feedback, and when any risk is identified, the center applies appropriate measures to eliminate it or minimize its impact, and these measures are monitored to ensure their effectiveness. The center is committed that when an unacceptable risk to impartiality is identified and cannot be mitigated to an acceptable level, it will not provide accreditation until the risk is removed.