Background

Accreditation is fundamental to the proper operation of a transparent and quality driven conformity assessment market. It is a service offered to manufacturing and service industries, which supports their competitiveness. It is fundamental to the public authorities, in order to obtain the proper level of confidence in the reports and certificates issued anywhere in the world and thus to facilitate the free movement of products and services throughout the world. It is fundamental to the conformity assessment bodies themselves, whether operating in the regulated or in the non regulated fields of activity, in order to help them demonstrate independently their technical competence, impartiality and integrity and to ensure transparent and quality driven competition between themselves. 

QAC aims at building and maintaining mutual confidence in the accreditation schemes operated by its members. It does so with the objective of ensuring that the certification and inspection services concerned meet the needs of industry and of the public authorities and of all other interested parties. In order for QAC to respond and be responsible to the needs of its stakeholders, and to ensure transparency in accreditation, a mechanism whereby QAC is answerable to and can receive input from its stakeholders is essential. 

The QAC Advisory Board constitutes the primary organ within QAC to ensure the effective and balanced involvement of all interested parties in QAC accreditation regarding policy and strategy issues, and shall serve as the main stakeholder forum for QAC