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Guidance for a Partnering Audit Arrangement between Industry and the UK MOD within the Military Environment

Introduction

One of the seven principles of Smart Acquisition and central to the Defence Industrial Strategy is the recognition of the need to develop much closer relationships with our industrial suppliers with a view to promoting closer working, greater trust and a sense of mutual endeavour.

Implementing a Partnering Audit Arrangement supports these aspirations and provides a method for optimising resources to meet common audit requirements through the sharing of quality management information.

An Exemplar Partnering Audit Arrangement document [100KB DOC] has been produced; this provides a framework of principles for a Partnering Audit Arrangement between Industry and the MOD within the Military Air Environment. These auditing principles may be used by all IPTs where the contractor’s Quality Management System (QMS) incorporates elements of the Military QMS or other MOD requirements.

Benefits of Partnering Audit Arrangement

The use of a Partnering Audit Arrangement between the Prime Contractor and the MOD will enable all stakeholders to gain visibility of the quality processes employed on MOD contracts associated with the air and land environments. This visibility is obtained through the sharing of quality management information, from an agreed programme of audits. Integrated audit requirements ensure effective use of personnel resources without duplication of effort.

The Partnering approach to auditing may also benefit all MOD Organisations involved with auditing MOD contracted quality management processes; these include:

the Government Quality Assurance Representatives (GQAR) Organisations who carry out, IPT tasked, risk based surveillance audits on Industry to gain assurance that contracted quality conditions are being met
the DGSE-Test and Evaluation Support Division (TESD) who assess Contractors against the requirements of (AvP67 – Flying Orders to Contractors)
the Director General Safety Engineering – Production Maintenance Support Division, (DGSE-PMSD) may assess a Company’s quality exposition and ongoing compliance against the requirements of Defence Standard 05-130 in support of the MOD - Maintenance Approved Organisation Scheme (MAOS).

The MOD Front Line Commands (FLCs) usually have responsibility for, and have significant experience, in auditing the Military QMS. However the MOD Forward / Depth initiative has introduced a contractual boundary that prevents the use of this expertise. A Partnering arrangement allows Service Personnel to work with the GQAR Organisation’s and the Prime Contractor to help assure the integrity of the interfaces between the Contractors QMS and the Military QMS.

Partnering Audit Arrangement

An “arrangement” is not contractually binding, therefore it is important to establish and sustain the right culture and associated behaviours from the outset to ensure overall Partnering success.

When contracted to supply long term maintenance under the End to End - Forward / Depth initiative, the Prime Contractor is responsible for the effectiveness of the QMS that is applicable to the Contract. The contracted QMS may include elements from the MOD Air or Land organisation’s QMS.

Change History

Any future amendments to this guidance will be recorded here.