Responsible Business Standard Full Certification

Responsible Business Standard full certification is a robust, comprehensive process that covers all aspects of your business operations. Being able to evidence you are operating ethically and responsibly in all aspects of your business will enhance your business reputation and help you win more contracts.

This certification is a two-stage process.

Stage One

To complete this certification you must have an appropriate course subscription in place.

This certification is evidence based. You will be required to complete forms for each section that is appropriate for your business and also submit appropriate evidence. If you have no employees, you can miss out the Workplace section although:

1. If you are a charity or not-for-profit organisation, Q10 in Workplace Part 2 may be relevant if you have volunteers and/or any other unpaid personnel;
2. Consider specifically if Q10 in Workplace Part 2 may be relevant as this relates to working with contractors and freelancers;
3. Although not necessary to complete certification, it may be worth working through the workplace section as an information resource for future expansion plans.

If you do not have any employees, you will NOT be penalised if you do not complete the workplace section and/or any employee related questions in the rest of the application.

You may refer to other forms of certification as evidence of meeting requirements of specific sections.

The Responsible Business Standard Certification is renewable every three years.

Please ensure you submit your General Business Information submission before you submit other documents. Thereafter, you can upload each section either individually when completed or in bulk when you have completed the whole process.

Do ensure you you complete the final section to confirm you have completed your submission at which point the audit process will begin. Up until that point, you may delete any uploads and resubmit but once the audit process has started, you will not be able to make any changes unless further information is requested by the auditor

Stage Two

Once the onsite audit is completed and the auditors are satisfied at this point that the results are high enough to proceed, the additional elements to complete certification are as follows:

1. For businesses with 5 or more employees, Responsible Business Standard certification requires an onsite visit in order to have a face-to-face conversation with directors and senior managers, view the premises and chat to employees. This is to ensure the culture of the company meets RBS requirements. Businesses with less than 5 employees are exempt, but will have an additional call from one of our auditors.
2. During the site visit or the call, a 3-year development plan will be agreed with the auditor. You will be required to submit details of this plan and annual updates on progress in the interim years.

An additional cost of £175 per annum will be incurred plus an additonal cost for site visits to be agreed, subject to location and size of organistion.