1. Our position
Datum Quality Network is not owned by, and earns nothing from, any manufacturer, supplier, contract manufacturer, engineering services firm or component-sourcing business. Our only income is fees for audits and assessments.
To be precise about what “independent” means here: a second-party audit is commissioned by a customer of the supplier being audited. We work for that customer, so we’re not independent of them. What this policy protects is our independence from the supplier being audited, and from any commercial interest in the result.
2. What every auditor declares, for every engagement
Before accepting an engagement, the auditor declares in writing whether any of these applies to the organisation being audited, its parent company or its subsidiaries:
- Current employment.
- Employment in the past two years.
- Consulting, training or implementation work for it in the past two years.
- A financial interest, such as shares held directly, loans or commissions. Broad investment funds don’t count.
- A close family member working there in a quality, operations or management role.
- Current employment with a competitor that the client has named.
- Any other relationship a reasonable person would see as affecting objectivity.
Each declaration is recorded with its date. If any item applies, that auditor isn’t assigned. When in doubt, the auditor declares and we decide.
3. No auditing of our own work
An auditor won’t audit a system, process or corrective action they designed, implemented or advised on for that organisation in the past two years.
The same rule applies to us as a company. We don’t currently offer implementation services. If we ever do, we won’t audit a site whose system we implemented within the past two years.
That company-wide restriction covers every audit and assessment we carry out on behalf of a customer, such as supplier audits, supplier qualifications and factory assessments, because the customer relies on our independence from the site. Internal audits of a client’s own system are different: we carry them out for the client itself, within its own audit programme. For these, the auditor-level rule above applies. If we helped build the system, the internal audit is done by a different auditor who had no part in that work.
4. Rotation
Where your own policy requires auditor rotation, we follow it. Otherwise we propose a different auditor after three consecutive audits of the same site, and you decide.
5. Pay doesn’t depend on the result
An auditor is paid the same whatever the audit finds. Follow-up visits are quoted separately, and whether to commission one is your decision.
6. Gifts and hospitality
Auditors accept nothing from an audited supplier beyond working meals and local transport during the audit. Anything else is declined and the offer is recorded.
7. Findings aren’t negotiable
Findings stand or fall on the recorded evidence. A disputed finding is re-checked by a senior auditor who didn’t perform the audit. A finding is never withdrawn because the client or the supplier objects to it, only because the evidence doesn’t support it.
8. Confidentiality between clients
Auditors don’t use information from one audit in another, or pass anything from one client’s audit to another client. This applies even when two clients use the same supplier.
9. Raising a concern
Anyone, whether a client, a supplier or an auditor, can raise a concern about independence by writing to us at service@datumquality.my. A founder who wasn’t involved in the engagement reviews it, and the person who raised it is told the outcome.
10. When the policy is broken
- An auditor who didn’t declare a conflict is removed from the engagement, and the client is told.
- Where the conflict could have affected the findings, we offer a repeat audit by another auditor.
- The auditor’s status and level are reviewed. Serious or repeated breaches end their membership of the network.
11. Review
This policy is reviewed every year, and after any breach.
Revision B, 8 October 2026: section 3 now explains how the company-wide rule applies to internal audits of a client’s own system.
See also: how we run an audit and the verification steps every auditor goes through.