Stakeholder engagement
Key NATA stakeholder engagement areas include:
- Engagement with industry
- Engagement with government
- Australia’s conformance infrastructure
- International bodies
Engagement with industry
NATA engages with industry associations, professional bodies and individual companies having needs that can be met by NATA’s accreditation activities.
NATA is represented on a wide range of industry committees and undertakes a structured consultation processes to enhance the value provided by accreditation within the Australian community.
NATA actively organises, sponsors and hosts a range of conferences, webinars and other activities on matters of interest to industry stakeholders.
NATA also supports international trading opportunities for Australian exporters by providing technical advice on policy and standards, as well as liaising with other accreditation bodies around the world.
NATA’s accreditation programs in the health sector are tailored and jointly administered with the respective professional association and include:
- Human Pathology accreditation program. Delivered in conjunction with the Royal College of Pathologists Australasia (RCPA)
- Sleep Disorders Services accreditation program. Delivered in conjunction with the Australasian Sleep Association (ASA)
- Medical imaging accreditation program. Delivered in conjunction with the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Radiologists (RANZCR).
For further information visit: News & Resources > Announcements
Engagement with government
NATA accreditation is recognised as a valuable tool across a wide range of government policy areas to assist in deregulation, good governance, fairer markets and increased public confidence.
NATA is actively engaged with government and NATA accreditation is recognised as a market-led tool for delivering policy objectives more efficiently and helping government to deliver on their obligations to industry and the wider community.
NATA’s recognition by the Australian Government is formalised through a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU). Under this agreement, NATA and the Commonwealth collectively seek to assist the wider Australian community by helping provide the availability of competent services to ensure reliable results of measurement, test, inspection and other similar activities.
NATA also maintains a range of MoUs with individual government agencies, including Commonwealth, state and territory bodies in order to assist them to achieve specific regulatory objectives.
Formal Agreements;
Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between NATA and the Australian Government
Listing of agreements with other parties
Australia’s conformance infrastructure
NATA is one of four bodies that form Australia’s standards and conformance infrastructure. This provides an important tool for improving the business efficiency and competitiveness of Australian industry in international and national markets.
The other key bodies are Standards Australia, the National Measurement Institute (NMI) and the Joint Accreditation System of Australia and New Zealand (JAS-ANZ).
For further information visit:
Standards and Conformance Infrastructure within Australia: https://www.industry.gov.au/regulations-and-standards/australias-standards-and-conformance-infrastructure
International bodies
Accreditation is an internationally recognised pathway for ensuring that tests and inspections around the world meet specified requirements.
NATA is one of around 100 accreditation bodies world-wide that are signatories to the International Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation (ILAC) Mutual Recognition Arrangement (MRA), which supports the mutual evaluation and acceptance of each other’s accreditation systems.
NATA also works with the Asia-Pacific Accreditation Cooperation (APAC), the regional cooperation for accreditation bodies in the Asia-Pacific region.
NATA has been designated by the Commonwealth Government as Australia’s national compliance monitoring authority for the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Principles of Good Laboratory Practice (GLP).
NATA actively participates in the work of ILAC, APAC and the OECD GLP Working Group as it is essential that Australia has a strong voice in these international areas.
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