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SAATCA Interim Committee Chairman's Communiqué March 2007
To all SAATCA registered auditors, training course providers and other interested parties. This is the third communiqué issued by the SAATCA Interim Committee, please refer to previous communiqués for published information on the committee’s work to date. The committee continues to take good strides forward towards handing the helm of a functional organisation over to a new SAATCA Board, to be appointed in May 2007, the committee held its third meeting on 17 March 2007, minutes are available from the SAATCA office on request. Preparations for the AGM to be held on 31 May 2007 are on target and a draft Articles of Association will be available on the SAATCA website for comment by interested parties within a few weeks. The purpose of the chairman’s communiqués is to keep interested parties apprised of progress made with the agreed key result areas within the portfolios held by the various committee members as well as other matters of general interest to users of SAATCA’s services. The information below summarises the committee’s work for the month March 2007. SAATCA OPERATIONS Registrar The SAATCA Registrar, Mr Jan Naude has initiated a programme to regain SAATCA’s SANAS accreditation by August 2007, a review of the SAATCA management system together with all supporting documentation, including certification criteria for the various auditor certification schemes, is underway. Whilst the initial focus is on establishing consistency between all SAATCA documents, expertise is also being sought from subject specialists and management system practitioners to ensure technical soundness of criteria documents. Evaluation Committee The Evaluation Committee met again on 31 March 2007 for further training on ISO/IEC 17024 facilitated by Mr Iain Muir, SABS Accreditation Manager. The Evaluation Committee has made great progress with the review of outstanding auditor applications and renewals to a point where, with only a few exceptions, renewals and applications being processed are mainly current. Attendance at the last Evaluation Committee meeting was, however, sub-optimal, with about a 1/3 of the original members absent, I’d like to appeal to committee members for their continued support, to ensure the sustainability of SAATCA ‘s operations. Work continues on the SAATCA Database to enable accurate and current reporting of performance statistics on various aspects related to auditor applications and renewals, all effort will be made to present some statistics in our next communiqué.
Interim Committee Members: J de Raedt, D Crawford, P McLaren, J Orkney, T Cunningham, K Arnold.
Schemes Committee Invitations continue to be sent out to identified interested parties, a general notice has also been placed on the SAATCA website, with a view to forming representative scheme committees for all auditor schemes (food safety, QMS, EMS, OHS etc.), interested parties are kindly asked to submit an abridged CV and contact details for review by the SAATCA Interim Committee. The response to date has been encouraging with 7 respondents already confirming their interest and availability to take part in the work of the various auditor certification schemes. LEGAL STATUS
SAATCA Articles of Association (AoA) SAATCA’s AoA remain under review by the interim committee together with our legal council Adams and Adams, with a view to proposing a revised set of articles that reflects SAATCA’s current business and modus operandi, to members and interested parties, for approval at the next SAATCA AGM. Downloadable versions of the AoA will be placed on the SAATCA website as soon as they’re available, for comment by all interested parties. SAATCA name change The process of updating the Companies and Intellectual Property Registration Office (CIPRO) records to reflect SAATCA’s current name from the previous “South African Council for Certification of Quality Auditors (SACCQA) has been completed, SAATCA’s name is now proudly legal!!, both our full and short form names have been made official and can be viewed on the CIPRO website (www.cipro.gov.za). SAATCA Logo The process to register the SAATCA Logo with CIPRO is now in progress, we received the results of a special search conducted by CIPRO on the registrability of the SAATCA name and logo on 19 March 07, the search revealed a potential conflict with a trademark already held by Standard Bank, by the name of SATCAR, however, considering that SAATCA and SATCAR offer distinctly different services and the cost for an application to register a trade mark is minimal (<R1000) it was decided to pursue registration of the SAATCA trade mark, an application was submitted on 28 March 07, the process takes up to 24 months before notification will be given by CIPRO of whether registration will be allowed or not. FINANCE The 2007 SAATCA budget was approved at the 3rd SAATCA Interim Committee meeting held on 17 March 2007.
Interim Committee Members: J de Raedt, D Crawford, P McLaren, J Orkney, T Cunningham, K Arnold.
SANAS ACCREDITATION As already mentioned under “Registrar” above, all effort is being made to revise the SAATCA management system, and to address all outstanding SANAS findings, in preparation for a SANAS accreditation audit, our target is to regain SANAS accreditation, including an extension to scope with as much of SAATCA’s scope of operations as possible, by August 2007. COURSE PROVIDERS Nothing to report for this communiqué CONFERENCES The SAATCA Cape Convention held on 15 and 16 March 2007 was by all accounts a successful venture, and judging by the feedback received from the participants much appreciated and enjoyed as well, this augers well for our flagship convention to be held from 29 to 30 August 2007. A call for papers and speakers is currently out, please call Vanessa at the SAATCA offices for further information. Although further work remains to be done and additional challenges lay ahead, SAATCA’s Interim Committee remains committed to handing over a stabilised and functional organisation to the new board in May 2007, we remain committed to our mandate and trust that we can continue to count on the support of all interested parties. Please direct your queries to the respective Interim Committee portfolios via the SAATCA office at [email protected] as follows: Finance
Rod Duarte SAATCA Interim Committee Chairman.
Interim Committee Members: J de Raedt, D Crawford, P McLaren, J Orkney, T Cunningham, K Arnold.
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SANAS ACCREDITATION