Society and Services

This society and services sector covers key areas of everyday life, including education, care and leisure. Accreditation ensures that services, products and qualifications are independently assessed and quality-assured, buliding transparency, trust and comparability for the public, businesses and public authorities.

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Overview

This sector encompasses areas that directly affect daily life: care and support services, provision in the social and education sectors, professional qualifications, and services in the leisure sector. These shape the quality of community life and promote social wellbeing, safety and trust – whether in the workplace, in continuing education and training, in the services provided by professionals, or in leisure activities.

The types of accreditation concerned and examples of the areas they cover are as follows:

• Management system certification bodies for hospitals, residential homes and care facilities, or providers of adult education
• Product certification, covering both products (e.g. textiles) and services (e.g. machinery safety)
• Certification bodies for persons (attestation of qualifications)

Role of accreditation

Accreditation ensures the competence and impartiality of certification bodies in the social and education sectors and their compliance with national and international standards.

It subjects certification bodies for management systems, personnel, products and services external and independent scrutiny.

Importance for the public, businesses and public authorities

Accreditation promotes transparency, safety and trust. When a service, product, qualification or management system bears an accreditation mark, the public can rely on it meeting established quality standards. For employers, employees and training providers, accredited credentials can be drawn upon when making personnel decisions or assessing qualifications.

Accreditation thus promotes comparability, transparency and quality in socially relevant services, contributing to safety across a wide range of areas and to reliable continuing education and training provision. In doing so, accreditation makes an important contribution to quality of life and the protection of the public interest in Switzerland.

Types of accreditation offered