01
Separation of functions
Standard-setting, assessment, decision and appeal are held apart. No one who assesses a file decides it; every decision is taken by two officers; appeals are heard by people who took no part in the decision.
GOVERNANCE
Governance principles.
Eight commitments that bind every scheme, every assessment and every decision the federation publishes.
02
Independence and impartiality
Interests are declared before work begins, conflicts are recorded and managed, and an officer with a conflict is recused. Assessment is carried out against the published standard and nothing else.
03
Due process
Applicants know the criteria in advance, see the evidence held against them, are heard before an adverse decision, receive reasons in writing, and have a published appeal window after every decision.
04
Transparency
Standards are public. Decisions are published in a permanent register with certificate number, issue instant and content hash. Refusal rates are published, so a fee can never quietly buy an outcome.
05
Proportionality
Requirements scale with the size and risk of what is assessed. Pilots are labelled as pilots, and evidence demands never exceed what the published standard requires.
06
Financial integrity
Fees pay for assessment, never for outcomes; refusal forfeits no future right to apply. No single client may become financially significant to the federation, and membership dues are accounted separately from certification fees.
07
Conformity, not artistic merit
Accreditation and certification state that published requirements are met. They are not prizes, rankings or endorsements of artistic quality, and they may never be presented as such.
08
Reviewability and correction
Every decision can be revisited: suspension, revocation, correction and appeal are part of the design. The register corrects by adding history, never by erasing it, and standards are revised on a published cycle.
Three instruments, kept apart
Accreditation is a conformity decision. Membership is a governance relationship. Partnership is technical alignment. Accreditation never requires membership; membership never confers accreditation; and none of the three is for sale.