This short blog will illustrate the minor changes that we are requesting Certifiers make to the way in which they use the List of Information Used for the Purposes of Certification – these changes only affect those that choose to upload a list rather than entering items manually.
We never miss an opportunity to shoehorn a reference to treating each certificate as a ‘snapshot’ of the entire project at the point of generating the certificate, and we do not intend to start now. Therefore, please take this as another reminder that such an approach should be used for the List of Information Used for the Purposes of Certification – the list should cover all the relevant information for the project up to that point, so the list accompanying a certificate which is adding Stage 4 to a staged project should cover all relevant information for the project at that point, rather than only the information directly related to Stage 4. Just think of each certificate as if it is the only certificate for the project at that point, and you won’t go far wrong.
We are aware that many Certifiers upload documents in a company specific format. Our intention is not to make the certification process more onerous, so we are not proposing any significant or time-consuming changes to the format of the document itself. Instead, we are asking that Certifiers add a small amount of information to the document as well as saving the file using an SER-specific naming protocol.
Firstly, if you do not do so already, please ensure that you include the Project Reference as it appears on the SER certificate somewhere visible on the uploaded document.
Secondly, when saving the file to be uploaded, please use the following naming protocol:
‘DocReg’-<project reference to match certificate>-<date as yyyymmdd>
e.g. DocReg–91756-20180418
Please note that it is not possible to save a file name containing /, so if your Project Reference contains this character please replace it with a dash.
Incorporating these minor changes into your certification practices will assist both local authorities and auditors to ensure that they are looking at the current document for a project which contains multiple certificates. We thank you in advance for your co-operation.