To achieve Safe to Trade certification the location must address all ‘Requirement’ and ‘Imminent Risk’ non-conformances raised within 30 days, (or 90 days for year 1 audits).
‘Best practise’ non-conformances do not need to be closed to achieve ‘Approved’ status.
Within this timescale you must:
- Access the audit report within RiskProof and identify any open ‘Requirement’ and ‘Imminent Risk’ non-conformances.
- Upload evidence of non-conformance closure to RiskProof and change the status of the relevant action point(s) in RiskProof to ‘Closed’.
- Wait to hear back from Shield Safety Certification Body who will verify whether the evidence is sufficient to close the non-conformance(s).
Below are the steps for closing audit report non-conformances in RiskProof:
- Access the relevant audit report in RiskProof.
- Expand the "Detailed Report" section to identify points with priority ‘requirement’ or ‘imminent risk’ that are labelled "not actioned" or ‘in progress’.
- Select "change" to make amendments. Suitable evidence must be uploaded to demonstrate closure of the relevant non-conformances.
- A drop down menu and a text box will then appear. Add the necessary information within the text box, upload evidence and select "pending" or "closed" from the drop down menu. Only pictures can be uploaded, pdfs and documents must be submitted as photograph format. Make sure you click the "Update Status" box to save. When a non-conformance is updated, details of the user that updates a non-conformance are time-stamped recording who took action and when.
- When evidence for all requirement non-conformances have been submitted and action points set to status ‘closed’, we will review the evidence provided. The review will take approximately one week. If evidence is rejected the non-conformance action point will be re-opened, and a comment added by the assessor as to what further evidence is needed.
- The location contact and food business primary contact will be emailed the outcome of evidence review. If evidence is rejected the non-conformance action point will be re-opened, and a comment added by the assessor as to what further evidence is needed.
- The location can resubmit closure evidence as long the non-conformance closure timescale of 30 days (of 90 days for year 1 audits) has not been exceeded.
In exceptional circumstances, if the business believes the non-conformance closure due date is unrealistic - for example, a non-conformance requiring significant structural modification, the business can submit an appeal to request an extension to the non-conformance closure date.