Assessor comments are an extremely important part of the certification process, and are used to give the Quality Assurance (QA) team at BRE Global an understanding on why the Assessor has awarded credits. Assessor comments must be provided for any question which has credits awarded.
The comments must provide the following information:
- Explanation on why the Assessor has deemed that the asset is compliant in relation to the credits awarded.
- Explanation on where compliance is demonstrated within the evidence which has been submitted. For example, if compliance is found within a particular section of a large document, the comments should help direct the QA team to the applicable section.
- Outline any information provided by BRE Global (external to the technical manual) which supports the decision made by the Assessor. For example, Knowledge Base Compliance Notes, or technical query responses.
In situations where the client has submitted detailed comments (on the client side of the tool) which already outlines all of the relevant information noted above, then the Assessor can simply provide a shortened comment verifying the accuracy of the client comment.
Note: Assessor comments must be written in English in order for the QA team to review the assessment. Where the majority of the information is provided within the client side, then this also needs to be in English, or simply translated over within the Assessor comments.
Example of compliant Assessor comments (related to HEA 01 – SD221 – 2.0:2015)
“2 credits have been awarded as 20% of the building envelope is glazed. Verification of this figure can be seen within the calculation provided within [insert evidence name]. Please also find photographic evidence of each side of the envelope [insert evidence name], as well as the drawings for each envelope which the calculations were based on [insert evidence name].”