About BAR-UK :
British Accreditation Registrar (UK) is the non-government accreditation body based in London, Great Britain, responsible for providing accreditation of conformity assessment bodies (CABs) in the fields of certification and inspection. Accreditation by BAR-UK demonstrates the competence and independence of these CABs.
BAR-UK is a signatory to a number of bilateral, regional and international agreements. These agreements provide international recognition and acceptance of BAR-UK accredited certificates and inspection reports.
Accreditation is an endorsement of a conformity assessment body’s (CAB's) competence, credibility, independence and integrity in carrying out its conformity assessment activities.
In everyday language the terms accreditation and certification are often used interchangeably. In the conformity assessment industry however, these terms have very different and specific meanings.
ISO’s formal definition of accreditation is “third party attestation related to a conformity assessment body conveying formal demonstration of its competence to carry out specific conformity assessment tasks.” (ISO/ IEC 17000:2004).
Certification is "third party attestation related to products, processes, systems or persons." (ISO/ IEC 17000:2004).
BAR-UK only accredits organisations who provide certification and/ or inspection services. These organisations are known as Conformity Assessment Bodies (or CABs).
A focus of these organisations are agreements, often referred to as Multilateral Recognition Agreements (MLAs) or multilateral Mutual Recognition Arrangement (MRAs), that signatories will recognise one another's accredited certificates and inspection reports. The benefit of this recognition is that it reduces the potential for re-certification or re-inspection when products and services move from one country to another.
BAR-UK accredited CABs offering services in the areas of various Management Systems’ fields, products are entitled to use BAR-UKF mark on corporate material such as letterheads, accredited certificates, quotations for work, advertisements, websites and other documents.
