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Dr Vyt Garnys and John Kruiskamp of CETEC are government authorised risk auditors for Legionella Management and Cooling Tower systems.

An audit can be described as a systematic, independent or documented process for obtaining evidence and evaluating it objectively to determine that the particular criteria have been fulfilled. Typically there are three types of audits:

• Internal audits: conducted by or on behalf of the organisation for internal purposes.

• Second-party audits: conducted by parties having an interest in the organisation.

• Third party audits: conducted by external independent organisations.

Within the built environment there is an increasing requirement to be proactive and undertake audits on a wide variety of systems and processes.

Audit requirements may take the following forms:

• Accreditation audit – To be acknowledged or accredited to belong to a designated organisation or type of business, i.e. health or aged care facility accreditation.

• Essential Services Audit – Inspection of essential services such as smoke alarms and sprinkler systems to ensure that they will operate in an emergency.

• Regulatory audit – Undertaken due to governmental regulations such as an audit of cooling tower risk management plans.

• Recommended audit – Audits recommended to be undertaken by governmental or organisational bodies to ensure that world’s best practice is followed. i.e. audit of a building for hazardous material, Indoor Environment Quality (IEQ) Audit, energy audit.

• Supplier audit - Review the activities of a supplier to ensure they are doing a competent job. An example is the independent evaluation of Water Treatment companies.

Typically audits are undertaken to ensure that the system or process that is specified as being in place is actually in place and followed by all employees of the organisation.

For example, an organisation has accreditation for AS/NZS ISO 14001 – Environmental Management. To obtain accreditation the organisation will have developed documented systems and processes that are to be followed within the organisation to ensure that the company will meet the objectives as specified in ISO 14001. Therefore an audit whether it is internal or external will need to determine that the documented systems are understood and implemented. To do this an auditor will be reviewing the following:

• Documented procedures and processes.

• Discussions with employees to ensure that they understand and follow the specified systems and processes.

• Assess all relevant documentation to confirm that the procedures are followed.

Through the investigative review of the systems and process the auditor will obtain an opinion whether the process has been implemented or not and will issue either a compliance or non-compliance. When a non-compliance is issued the auditor is to include details on why a non-compliance was issued with the audit certificate. Information obtained in the audit certificate should be used by the organisation as a valuable process for continual improvement, to ensure that the systems and processes are implemented.

Cetec can help with advice about audits, review prior to an audit or conduct an independent audit on your behalf.

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