The Domestic Removals Standard
In the mid-1990s, as quality standards such as BS 5750 and then ISO 9000 gradually became established, the European removals industry came to realise that these were too generic, too distant from their day-to-day activities and also, for smaller companies, over-demanding in irrelevant and unnecessary areas.
Led by a committee put forward by BAR (the British Association of Removers) it was decided to develop an industry-specific quality standard that would be realistic and affordable for all types and sizes of removal companies, especially those who operated primarily in the private, domestic sector.
Input on a number of key areas was gathered from numerous trade associations and national standards bodies across Europe (the counterparts of BSI, the British Standards Institution) and this was rationalised and published eventually as BS EN 12522:1998.
The standard has just undergone an almost 3-year long review through the European CEN/NEN community involving all European countries and has been launched in a new 2024 version as of 31st December 2024.
Some elements of the standard are mandatory, i.e. the standard says that certain measures “shall” be carried out and sometimes the exact requirement is specified. During audit by the certification company, any shortcoming against those will result in a “nonconformity” which will have to be remedied before a certificate is issued.
In other areas, the standard is less prescriptive and there are recommendations for best practice. When assessing a company’s performance against those, an auditor can show greater flexibility and if there is room for improvement the report will include appropriate recommendations and these will be followed up during the next year’s audit.
BS EN 12522 was written by persons with experience and understanding of the industry and a well-run removals company should find it easy to follow and should not have any difficulty interpreting and implementing the requirements (which cannot always be said with more generic standards such as ISO 9001).
In addition to several fundamental sections that provide the backbone of a quality management system, the standard covers the three phases of the removal service: firstly, the initial contact, survey and quotation; then the carrying out phase; and lastly the follow-up including quality measurement and remedying any shortcomings.
The standard covers the following areas:
QSS holds accreditation from UKAS for its work on BS EN 12522 and is itself assessed by UKAS twice each year against the relevant auditing standard BS EN ISO-IEC 17065:2012.
As mentioned above you need to first purchase a copy of the standard (QSS are an authorised BSI standards distributor and can save you money on the cost of the standard if ordered through QSS) and then budget costs for implementing the standard within your business prior to initial assessment. You may wish to do this yourselves or you may engage an appropriately qualified and experienced independent consultant who can quote to assist you through the preparation process.
When a removals company engages QSS (Quality Service Standards Ltd) to carry out its assessment and certification processes, an “Initial Assessment” will be carried out by QSS to audit the company’s compliance against the entire standard. Following this (and subject to the clearance of any nonconformities) a certificate will be issued, usually valid for 12 months. Annual surveillance assessments are then carried out, each covering certain elements of the standard and normally leading to renewal of certification for a further 12 months (subject to any nonconformities).
Costs for this can be obtained by contacting David Woodhouse, QSS General Manager at:
Quality Service Standards Ltd.,
Unit 3, The Progression Centre, Mark Road,
Hemel Hempstead, HP2 7DW
T: +44 (0)1923 699840
E: admin@qssonline.co.uk
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