​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​Organisations applying for accreditation and accredited bodies must comply with the requirements of accreditation standards. The bodies must also take into account all guidelines, instructions and principles published by FINAS and the international organisations EA, ILAC and IAF that apply to material aspects of their activities. The bodies must comply with the requirements of all publications specified as mandatory guidelines among the abovementioned publications. Guidelines from different stakeholder groups may also be used in the maintenance and development of operations. This page includes information on the accreditation requirements and the supporting guidelines on all aspects of accreditation.

Accreditation​ ​Requirements 

• Decision FINAS P1/2024 Requirements applied to the accreditation services (pdf)
  
• FINAS Requirement V1/2024 Rules for reference to accreditation (pdf)
  
• Terms of the accreditatio​n decision (pdf)
  

Mandatory guidelines

Mandatory guidelines for each field of accreditation can be found on the pages presenting the fields of accreditation.​

EA’s guidelines 2/13 and 2/15 describe requirements in situations where the body has offices abroad and has a flexible scope of accreditation.

Guid​elines​

​Examples of guidelines for the field of accreditation can be found on the presentation pages of the fields of accreditation. The different guidelines can be reviewed on the EA, ILAC and IAF publication websites. EA maintains a list of accreditation guidelines (EA-INF/01 List of EA Publications and International Documents). Guidelines and guiding documents are also published by the Advisory Committee on Metrology (in Finnish), Eurachem, Euralab and EURAMET, among others.

• EA (The European co-operation for  Accreditation)
  
• ILAC (International Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation)
  
• IAF (International Accreditation Forum Inc.)
  
• Eurachem
• Eurolab
• Euramet​
  

FINAS Leaflets

Leaflets by FINAS provide more detailed information about the accreditation process and the principles of confidential operations.

• FINAS Leaflet 1, FINAS Rules for Accreditation (pdf)
  
• FINAS Leaflet 2, Principles of confidential operation of FINAS Finnish Accreditation Service​ (pdf)

• FINAS Leafle​t 10 – FINAS accreditation criteria, policy documents and guidelines was also used in the past. The leaflet is no longer updated; up-to-date information on mandatory and regular guidelines can be found on the pages for the fields of accreditation.

​Policy documents

The purpose of the policy documents published by FINAS is to clarify the application of the accreditation requirements in practice. The policy documents have been prepared by VANK-P​ together with national experts and stakeholders. The principles agreed in the international cooperation organisations of accreditation bodies (EA, ILAC and IAF) have been taken into account in the preparation.

An update of the policy documents A1–A14 is currently ongoing (August 2023).

• A1/2024 The principles for the assessment of sampling according to the standards SFS-​EN ISO/IEC 17025:2017 and SFS-EN ISO 15189:2013
• A2/2024 Principles for the assessment of the quality assurance and proficiency testing practises in laboratories (pdf)
  
• A3/2022 Principles for the assessment of flexible scope (pdf)​
  
• Policy document A4/2012 withdrawn, the content transferred to the website.
  
• A5/2024 Sector schemes (pdf)  
• A6/2024 Principles for the cooperation between FINAS and national authorities (pdf)
• Policy document A7/2010 withdrawn.
  
• A8/2022 Assessment of Impartiality – Principles Ap​plied by FINAS (pdf)  
• A9/2022 Technical Support for Assessment – Principles Applied by FINAS (pdf)
  
• A10/2024 Assessment of Multi-Sector and Multi-Site Organisations​ (pdf)
  
• A11/2023 Princip​les for the Asses​sment of Subcontracting (pdf)
  
• A12/2023 FINAS Finnish Accreditation Service principles of service (pdf)
  
• A13/2024​ Policy document for risk-based assessment (pdf)
  
• A14/2024 Policy Document for Remote Assessments (pdf)​​
  

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