Impartiality Policy

Introduction
The overall aim of this policy is to give confidence to all parties that rely on Risk Assessment services
provided by SMS Environmental. The main principles for inspiring confidence are competence,
impartiality and independence both in action and appearance. This Policy outlines SMS
Environmental’s commitment to ensuring impartiality throughout its operations and to safeguard
from threats to independence and impartiality.

Commitment
SMS Environmental understands the impact and possible influence that can be exerted on the
company and employees when carrying out Legionella Risk Assessments. With this in mind, SMS has
taken the conscious decision to declare all services to be, and always will be, unbiased and impartial.
This is achieved by carrying out constant monitoring of employees and services.
All employees that are directly involved with the risk assessments process are required to disclose
known relationships with the body being assessed. SMS will then manage the possible impartiality or
conflict of interest.

SMS Environmental implements the following principles that reduce risk to impartiality:
• Maintaining a culture that stresses the importance to act impartially and conduct work in
the wider interest.
• Maintaining a professional environment and culture that supports behavior of all personnel
that is consistent with impartiality.
• Employees are reminded during induction on the importance on acting impartially, any
employees found to be continually acting biased towards one or more clients could be
removed from a contract or face discipline action.

Confidentiality
All information obtained from clients by SMS Environmental will be classed as confidential, unless
obtained from a public domain. Information held on Opuz12 can only be accessed by SMS
Environmental employees and the client it involves. The management of confidential information is
set out in SMS Environmental’s confidentiality policy (IMS50) which is provided to all clients at the
Credit Check stage and at annual contract review meetings.

Threats to impartiality
Threats to impartiality are sources of potential bias that may compromise, or may reasonably be
expected to compromise the ability to make unbiased observations and conclusions. The following
list provides examples of the types of threats that my create pressures and other factors that can
lead to biased behavior.
• Self interest threats: Threats that arise from employees acting in their best interest. This
includes financial or emotional influences. Another example is where a risk assessor
conducts an assessment at a site where the employee also conducts maintenance work;
therefore his own work is being assessed and could be biased.
• Relationship threats: Threats that arise due to close relationships with clients. This could
include biased results due to familiarity with client.

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 • Intimidation threats: Threats that arise from employees or the company being influenced by
third parties or clients. This includes intimidation to retract contracts if the assessment is not
per client specification, even though that specification may not conform to the foundations
of the risk assessment.
• Advocacy threats: Threats that arise due to the company or employees acting in support of,
or in opposition to, a given organization which is at the same time its customer, in the
resolution of a dispute or litigation.

Safeguards to impartiality
In line with the requirements of ISO 17020, SMS Environmental’s Management Team has
implemented certain safeguards to ensure its services are carried out impartially. These include:

1. SMS Environmental carries out services through two different departments which are
connected by top management. The two departments comprise of a Risk Assessment Team and
a Maintenance Team; creating a physical barrier between risk assessment work and
maintenance work. IMS01 contains further details on the management structure of the two
teams.
2. If a risk assessor has carried out maintenance work for a client after 1st September 2014, they
will no longer be authorised to carry out a risk assessment for that client. Any maintenance
work carried out for a client prior to the 1st September 2014 will not be applicable and the risk
assessor is authorised to conduct a risk assessment. The Risk Assessor Operations Coordinator is
responsible for ensuring this is implemented, the method is detailed within IMS75.
3. The Opuz system prevents a member of the maintenance team from being allocated a Risk
Assessment task type, as per the Skills Matrix and Skilled Users function detailed within HR58.
4. SMS Environmental only provides software that can amend risk assessments to members of the
risk assessment team, any amendments are noted and authorized by the Risk Assessment Team
Leader.
5. Impartiality assessments take place on an annual basis to determine employee impartiality. Any
conflicts are noted and employees are forbidden to carry out work for that client.
6. Safeguarding practice from the coordinator point of view is described in IMS75

Exceptions
Risk Assessors are only permitted to carry out maintenance work alongside a risk assessment if the
maintenance task falls within the scope of the Risk Assessment. This only applies to these tasks:

➢ System – Temp
➢ CWS Tank Inspection, Ball Valve Operation and Open Vent Checks
➢ Calorifier Inspection & Drain Check
➢ Sampling – All types
➢ Expansion Vessel Check
➢ UV and Quartz Sleeve Inspections
➢ Log Book Checks

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 Risk Assessors should only carry out maintenance alongside a Risk Assessment if an engineer is
unavailable and site access is limited. The Risk Assessor Operations Coordinator will prevent any
maintenance task, not included in the above list, from being assigned alongside a risk assessment.

Assessing the risk to impartiality

SMS Environmental’s HR department carries out impartiality assessments during the recruitment
process to establish employee’s stance on impartiality and to identify any relationships employees
may have with clients. Following the induction assessment, employees are required to complete an
Impartiality assessment on an annual basis during their annual review; this is to ensure any new
relationships can be identified. Line managers who carry out annual performance review are
required to create a new impartiality assessment task and assign it to the employee; the task ID
must be referenced on the Performance Review and Development form.

The impartiality assessment is controlled on Opuz under the Impartiality Task description. An
employee is assigned a task which contains a set of specific questions to be answered. The
Compliance Officer will evaluate all completed impartiality assessments and determine whether the
employee is a risk; the assessment consists of 9 questions. Answers to questions 1 – 5 are user
specific, the Compliance Officer will evaluate the employee’s answers and determine whether there
is a conflict of interest with any of SMS Environmental’s clients. Questions 6 - 9 are multiple choice,
the answers provided will be matched to a matrix which indicates the individuals risk rating detailed
in table 1 below:
Question Answer
6 1 2 3
7 1 2 3
8 1 2 3
9 1 2 3
Total Score
4 – High Risk 4 -8 – Medium Risk 8-12 – Low Risk
Table 1

The Compliance Officer enters the employees risk on the task long description, and a hazard is raised
against the task for Medium or High risks. A CSIP task must be raised from the hazard as detailed in
the Preventative, Corrective Action Procedure IMS55. A control method must be implemented to
mitigate or reduce the risk rating as shown in the table 2 below:
Low Risk Medium Risk High Risk
Little influence - Some influence - Compromised High influence - Compromised
Compromised objectivity is objectivity is
objectivity is possible probable
very unlikely
Unlikely that employees Employees with a Medium risk Employees at High Risk must not have
will create biased results, must have further training on Risk Assessment tasks assigned to them
Re-Inspections and impartiality and an additional and removed from Skilled Users list.
Further training required and a week of
Technical Audits to be technical audit and Re-
surveillance with Risk Assessor Team
carried out per schedule inspection. Compliance Officer Leader followed by 3 Re-inspections.
to review completed Re- Risk Assessor Team Leader to provide
inspections and Audits to report on employee’s impartiality to be
reviewed by Compliance Officer. If it is
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 evaluate whether employee is determined that the employee is still a
impartial. high risk then an alternative role will be
considered.
Table 2.
In addition to annual assessments, it is important to evaluate the risk to impartiality at all stages of
the risk assessment process. Each individual involved in risk assessment work has a duty to identify
conflicts, and where a conflict of interest has been identified the Risk Assessor Team Leader must be
notified at the earliest convenience, following the procedure detailed below.

Identification of Risks to Impartiality

Whenever a member of the Risk Assessment Team identifies a risk to impartiality, they are to notify
the Risk Assessment Team Leader at the earliest convenience; the task must not be completed and
de-allocated from the Risk Assessor by contacting the Risk Assessment Operations Coordinator.

The Risk Assessor Team Leader must notify the Compliance Officer who will then set up and assign a
CSIP task to the Team Leader. The task must detail the type of threat to impartiality as depicted
above. The Risk Assessor Team Leader will then complete the CSIP task per IMS55 and implement an
improvement action that will mitigate the risk to impartiality.

Remunerations
SMS Environmental does not and will not provide any remuneration to employees for the services
they carry out. This is to ensure that the work provided is not bias for financiall gain.

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