National Association of Testing Authorities, Australia

Thomas Facklam, ex-CEO of DAkkS, Germany has been engaged as the consultant to manage the project The first phase is to determine eligibility for membership of the new organisation and the need for ‘categories’ of members. [...] The purpose is to keep committee members informed of these and to compile for submission to CASCO for the next revision of the standard. [...] The NATA Stakeholder Team and the CEO met with key staff of the Trade Facilitation Branch to meet their new General Manager Alison Drury and discuss a range of topics including: − Competition in accreditation (domestic, foreign accreditation bodies and implications); − Pathology accreditation, the tripartite Deed (Department of Health and Services Australia) negotiations and the move to the ACSQHC. [...] The Workshop and Plenary on the Food Safety Risk Communication Framework provided an insight into activities in the food regulatory space in the APEC region which is aligned with NATA’s focus on food related activities, and included discussion on: − strategies to promote the application of shared responsibility for the management of import and export food safety; − enforcement of pesticide MRLs; −. [...] − The renewal of the MOU with the Australian Signals Directorate for the evaluation of ICT security products under the Australasian Information Security Evaluation Program ("AISEP") has progressed and should be signed in the near future.