Preparing well is crucial for an audit to be successful. You’ll firstly need to select the auditor (ideally someone who has completed an auditing course). This person must be independent of the areas being audited (ie doesn’t work in the area).
You (or the auditor) will then need to confirm and document the scope, which will be based on initial planning. This involves:
Note: It’s also important to remember that the scope should include a review of the safety processes and procedures included in the organisation’s safety case and safety system.
The number of activities covered by a documented system is often too large to cover in a single audit, therefore audits often need to be limited to a relatively small sample of an operation. It’s helpful to include processes that address the following areas:
You can also carry out spot checks on items that have been allegedly been inspected or tested by the auditee.
Only by reviewing the documentation can an auditor decide how to progress the audit and develop the questions they need to ask during the audit.
Documents you should review to understand what needs to be done include:
Other supporting documents you should review prior to your visit to understand what has been done include:
Performing a desktop review of the documentation prior to the site visit will save a lot of time and effort during the audit. Familiarising yourself with the documents will enable you to ensure they comply.
Checklists are one way to ensure that the audit will be performed according to your specified audit objectives.
Note: A checklist is an aid to an internal audit. Internal audits are not a tick box checklist exercise.
Checklist benefits:
Care should be taken to only include questions that address the purpose and scope of the audit and each question should be based on a documented requirement of the system.
When forming your checklist questions, think about the input to the process being audited, what is carried out within the process and what the output of the process is. Then try to make your questions follow this input-process-output flow.