Please note that due to ongoing COVID 19 travel restrictions forcing postponement and rescheduling of assessment and surveillance visits to our clients, our normal ability and capacity to conduct on-site visits and complete assessments for new applicants in a timely manner has been affected.
Additionally, we are receiving a high number of new applications from CBs. This has lead us to recruit additional technical resources in the regions where we are seeing the most growth and seek assistance from other ABs where possible, however we are still limited by time and geography in terms of onboarding, training, and ability to travel. For initial accreditations the office assessment and witness audits must be completed on site according to all current scheme and IOAS accreditation rules, and we already have a queue of applicants who we have accepted that all require initial assessment.
We are currently working through the assignment and scheduling of current clients and the queue of applicants, and in fairness to all we are working through these in order of application date. We are therefore informing all current and potential applicants for IOAS accreditation to understand and consider that the process will take longer than normal and given the wide variation and changing restrictions on travel, even at local level, we are unable to advise on what that timeline will be. We commit to keeping you informed on the changing circumstances and appreciate your understanding and patience.
