Hi GB,

The answer IMHO is impossible to give. The cost of training people as auditors is £1500-2000 each, the memberships to a accreditation body (BSI/SGS etc) varies depending upon the size, turnover, employees and requirements of the business, as well as from company to company. I would expect the starting point at the cost of an auditors training and upwards.

The amount of work you are contemplating is huge and shouldnt be understimated, this will have the effect of being a full time job for at least one person. It may be better to recruit someone with the experience and auditor tickets, which leaves everyone else to their day jobs which I am assuming will still require to be done.

The cost of a consultant to guide you through this, would probably be saved by the mistakes you could end up making without it. By saying this I do not mean to demean your previous experience or ability to upskill.

Pricing from all the providers varies by company size, number of locations, number of assessment visits required

Best advice would be to contact two or three and see what costs they advise, be up front with how many certificates you want to achieve as the assessments can be aligned saving time and cost.

In the past I have been involved with management systems certified by BSI, Lloyds Quality Register, SGS and Intertek (along with a couple of smaller pay your money and get your certificate operations).

Then you can enter the debate about whether or not an assessment body should or should not be UKAS accredited - smaller players will point out there is no requirement to be such but some larger customers may dismiss certificates issued by those who are not

1 of my clients has 9001 and 14001. They employ an external auditor to come in for a day, a week before the actual audit.

External chappy came in, conducted a meeting with directors and wrote the manual and asked for evidence. Every year he reviews the manual and asks for up todate evidence, inductions, vehicle check sheets, etc etc

ISo auditor comes in and we pass with flying colours every year due to the diligence of the external auditor.

On the other hand, I've been asked to look after the 9001 for another client, I have no real world experience of sorting it out and at times I'm left floundering around. Once I ask a few questions to the right people, I'm back on track but I've wasted a lot of time. If they'd employed a proper external auditor to set it up it would of been done months ago.

Edited by user 03 June 2019 13:44:49(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

For a management system I used to ball park @ £5,000 per annum per certificate which included two external auditor visist and absolutely no consideration of the internal time and effort (paperwork, audits, meetings, reviews) thankfully N.M.P. for the last 5 years as head office take care of it.

The cost will be made up of the number of days they feel they need, if you work on about £800 per day you will be about right. They will want to come and do a pre gap analysis 9 at least 1 day) then the audit now if you have more than one place of work that will be 2 or 3 days for HQ and 1 day per place at least. If you work on site, they may want to go to one. You need to work out costs on a 3-year basis as ISO is renewed every 3 years. So everywhere audited at start, half the sites yr1 and yr 2. Then start again with everything yr 3. Trying to tie the little Bu&&£rs down is like trying to nail jelly to a wall. They will try and charge you mileage, from auditors home to your place, they will have odd admin charges, also hotel charges, they may every charge you for the actual cert (think over £100 for the piece of paper – EACH piece of paper !, so more than one cert required!!!!).

I used to think the elements of the ISO were things that any company would want to do back in the day, more or less (I always had a problem with CI, as I feel it is easy to waste money gold plating things just to have something to show). Not a big fan of the Context of org and business risk assessment elements which is none of their business in any of the 3 ISO’s. If I had my own business I may work to most of the elements but not get it externally audited unless a really big customer required it. Sadly where I work it is a requirement to have ISO9001 and 14001 ( but not 45001 hayho)

Just my ramblings, best of luck

Chris