Integrity Report 2022

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MONITORING CERTIFICATION BODY PERFORMANCE

Assessing certification integrity

In addition to annual supervision by their own accreditation bodies according to the international rules for product certification (ISO/IEC 17065), all GLOBALG.A.P. approved certification bodies (CBs) are monitored by GLOBALG.A.P.’s own dedicated team of expert integrity assessors.

The Certification Integrity Program monitors and evaluates the performance of all GLOBALG.A.P. approved CBs through integrity assessments. These integrity assessments ensure that CBs are conducting their audits and inspections in line with GLOBALG.A.P. guidelines and procedures, the standard’s or add-on’s normative documents, and the signed license and certification agreement.

This ensures that the same criteria and quality standards are applied consistently.

Integrity assessments explained

Integrity assessments explained

There are several types of integrity assessments: CB office and producer assessments, assessments against the GLOBALG.A.P. Chain of Custody (CoC) standard, and reviews of add-on checklists uploaded to the GLOBALG.A.P. IT systems.

  1. The offices and producers to be assessed are selected primarily based on risk assessments and the follow-up of sanctions or complaints. However, there is always a percentage of producer assessments where the sample is selected randomly. In general, CB offices are assessed approximately every three years.
  2. After the assessments, reports are reviewed centrally by the GLOBALG.A.P. Secretariat. The assessments are then classified according to the CB’s performance on a scale of one (unacceptable performance) to five (excellent performance).
  3. Based on the results of one or more assessment reports, or on failure to demonstrate improvement from previous assessments, the GLOBALG.A.P. Secretariat forwards the information to the Integrity Surveillance Committee.
  4. The Integrity Surveillance Committee then decides on CB sanctions. Committee members, who are industry experts, are appointed by the Advisory Board but work independently and meet at least twice a year. To ensure an impartial evaluation, the integrity assessment reports are anonymized before delivery to the Integrity Surveillance Committee (i.e., they do not include identifiable information such as the producer’s name, GGN, country, CB name, etc.).
  5. After Integrity Surveillance Committee meetings, CBs are informed about their proposed sanctions and are given the opportunity to appeal within 14 days of notification.

Certification body sanctions

Sanctioning steps are not necessarily consecutive. In the case of demonstrated fraud or severe breach of normative requirements, the highest sanctions may be applied immediately.

Hover over the sanction steps to read more. 

First Warning

The CB and its accreditation body are informed.

Second Warning

The CB and its accreditation body are informed.

Yellow Card

The CB and its accreditation body are informed. The sanction is published on the GLOBALG.A.P. website.

Red Card

The CB and its accreditation body are informed. The sanction is published on the GLOBALG.A.P. website. The CB is not allowed to issue new certificates.

Contract Cancellation

The CB and its accreditation body are informed. The sanction is published on the GLOBALG.A.P. website. The license and certification agreements are cancelled.

Certification Integrity team activities

days of Integrity Assessments
0
countries covered
0

This section does not include training activities – see the Training page for an overview of CB training in 2022. 

Activity     Standard/ Benchmarked scheme Scope Total number of assessments Total number of assessments that included add-ons Total number of assessment days
On-site CB office assessment Integrated Farm Assurance (IFA) - 32 GLOBALG.A.P. Risk Assessment on Social Practice (GRASP): 27 62.5
Nurture Module: 11
Off-site CB office assessment IFA - 28 GRASP: 23 68.5
Nurture Module: 6
On-site producer assessment AMAGAP Crops FV 2   2
  GLOBALG.A.P. Chain of Custody (CoC) Crops 18   15
  IFA Crops FV, AQ 154 GRASP: 90 205
Nurture Module: 26
  GRASP Crops FV 1 1 2
  KFC Crops FO 2   2
  MPS-GAP Crops FO 1   1
Off-site producer assessment (emergency procedure) CoC Crops 3   2.5
  IFA Crops FV 5 GRASP: 3 8
Add-on checklist review GRASP - 8 8 16.5
  Nurture Module - 11 11 35
Total     265 GRASP: 152 420
Nurture Module: 54

Integrity assessment locations

In 2022, integrity assessments were conducted in 44 countries. 

Hover over the map to see the number of integrity assessment days by country. 

Classification of producer and CB office integrity assessments in 2022

Hover over the bar chart sections to see the number of integrity assessments in each class. 

Class 5: Excellent performance. No incidents detected. The CB shows a high level of implementation of the GLOBALG.A.P. requirements.

Class 4: Good performance. No systematic and serious non-conformances found.

Class 3: Improvement is required.

Class 2: Poor performance. The CB requires immediate and significant improvement.

Class 1: Unacceptable performance which calls the CB’s overall competency in question.

Selection method of integrity assessments at CB offices

Hover over the sections to see the breakdown. 

Selection method of integrity assessments at producer premises

Hover over the sections to see the breakdown. 

Evolution of integrity assessment outcomes (2008-2021)

Hover over the bar chart sections to see the integrity assessment results by class. 

CB office integrity assessment outcomes

Producer integrity assessment outcomes

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