Accreditations
United Kingdom Accreditation Service
The Government Laboratory is a UKAS accredited testing laboratory, No. 1102. This means we are accredited by UKAS, the United Kingdom Accreditation Service, to recognised International Standard BS EN ISO / IEC 17025:2017, however please note that our accreditation is only for a representative range of our testing work and not all that we do.
The following link takes you to our Certificate of Accreditation on the UKAS website, which is a live document showing the up to date status of the Laboratory:
Government Laboratory UKAS Certificate
The above link also leads to our schedule of accreditation showing the precise scope of tests covered, which should be noted does not cover the entirety of our very wide range of work. Only the tests specified in the schedule are subject to this formal accreditation.
The scope of accreditation is kept under constant review and is likely to change at least annually - this site should therefore be checked periodically for updates. Users for whom accreditation of specific tests is important are urged to check the scope of accreditation and to discuss their requirements with the Laboratory.
For information on the scope of accreditation that was applicable prior to the date of issue of the current schedule please contact the laboratory.
Accreditation to ISO/IEC 17025:2017 demonstrates technical competence for a defined scope and the operation of a laboratory quality management system. It has been agreed internationally that fulfilment of the requirements of ISO/IEC 17025:2017 means that the laboratory meets both the technical competence requirements and management system requirements that are necessary for it to consistently deliver technically valid test results.
Proficiency testing schemes
In addition, we participate in a number of proficiency testing schemes to verify our technical competence across a representative range of our testing work:
- AQUACHECK (water analysis)
- DAPS - Distillers Analysis Proficiency Scheme
- FAPAS - the Food Analysis Performance Assessment Scheme
- FOBS - (foreign bodies in food)
- LEAP - Laboratory Environmental Analysis Proficiency Scheme
- QDCS - Quality in Dairy Chemistry Scheme
- QMS - Quality in Microbiology Scheme
- QUASIMEME (shellfish toxins)
