Yesterday I had an audit by a very large online retailer who is dipping toes into selling branded food products.
They have lifted large portions of the BRC standard as their "Standard".
Side rant....If they are going to use the BRC standard, and we are already BRC certificated, what's the point in another audit?
Anyway, the auditor asked about document review. How often do you review your documents and who does the review.
I pointed out that each one of our documents say "This document and all controlled documents that are part of the Food Safety and Quality Management system will be reviewed at least annually as part of the Internal Audit Program."
I explained that as part of the internal audit, all documents that pertain to the particular clause being audited, are reviewed by the internal auditor. The auditor did not think this was sufficient, but did not raise a NC. I also pointed out that BRC, and the retailers "standard", is mute on document review.
With all that being said, what is your opinion on who should be reviewing documents? If you want to hold true to the intent of internal auditing, the person who may have written the document, or is in charge of the program or area where the document is relevant, should not be doing it. And they are not, at least in my case, because the internal auditor for that section did not write the document and is not in charge of the program or area affected.
Thoughts?
Marshall