Guidelines for Auditing Management Systems

ISO 19011:2018 - Guidelines for auditing management systems

7 Competence and evaluation of auditors

7.1 General

Confidence in the audit process and the ability to achieve its objectives depends on the competence of those individuals who are involved in performing audits, including auditors and audit team leaders. Competence should be evaluated regularly through a process that considers personal behaviour and the ability to apply the knowledge and skills gained through education, work experience, auditor training and audit experience. This process should take into consideration the needs of the audit programme and its objectives. Some of the knowledge and skills described in 7.2.3 are common to auditors of any management system discipline; others are specific to individual management system disciplines. It is not necessary for each auditor in the audit team to have the same competence. However, the overall competence of the audit team needs to be sufficient to achieve the audit objectives.

The evaluation of auditor competence should be planned, implemented and documented to provide an outcome that is objective, consistent, fair and reliable. The evaluation process should include four main steps, as follows:

a) determine the required competence to fulfil the needs of the audit programme;

b) establish the evaluation criteria;

c) select the appropriate evaluation method;

d) conduct the evaluation.

The outcome of the evaluation process should provide a basis for the following:

- selection of audit team members (as described in 5.5.4);

- determining the need for improved competence (e.g. additional training);

- ongoing performance evaluation of auditors.

Auditors should develop, maintain and improve their commpetence through continual professional development and regular participation in audits (see 7.6).

A process for evaluating auditors and audit team leaders is described in 7.3, 7.4 and 7.5.

Auditors and audit team leaders should be evaluated against the criteria set out in 7.2.2 and 7.2.3 as well as the criteria established in 7.1.

The competence required of the individual(s) managing the audit programme is described in 5.4.2.