The task of the Verification Office

The assignment and the tasks of the Verification Office are specified in Article 10 and Appendix 3 of the Covenant:

Article 10

The Verification Office

1. The Verification Office is an independent and neutral organization appointed by the Ministers in order to guard the correct implementation of the benchmarking system and all adherent calculation, to give advices about the system and to report about it. It is the only authority that judges individual cases, which are the study methods, the benchmark consultant and his study, the determination of the gap from the best international standard, the energy plan, the progress and monitoring, as defined in Appendix 3.
2. The Ministers may alter the appointment referred to in Clause 1 of this Article only after affording the Commission Benchmarking an opportunity to advise on this within three weeks.
3. The requests put on the Verification Office are specified in Appendix 3.
   

Appendix 3

1. Requirements to be met by the Verification Office

• Independent and neutral organization
• Have the confidence of all parties of the Covenant
• Guarantee a stable functioning during the implementation of the Covenant
• Work according strict guidelines
• Obtain and guard a quality certification (ISO 9000)
• Dispose of experts in the process technologies which shall be treated
• Ability to meet several practical implementation requirements as delivery terms and execution methods of all tasks described in the Covenant

2. Tasks of the Verification Office

The Verification Office controls, judges and advises about the study of the best international standard, the gap from that standard, the energy plan and the monitoring as specified in articles 4 to 7, and reports as specified in article 8.

Very specifically, the Verification Office verifies the study of the best international standard in advance of, during, and after the work of the benchmark consultants. For each of these three stages the activities are listed below. The intention is that appropriate checks before and during the study will reduce the necessity for checks after the study. This gives the advantage of time benefit and avoiding extensive retrospect corrections.

Prior to the study
Determine that the requirements for the expert third party are met (see above). The working methods used here include:

• Inspection of documents (such as ISO 9000 certificate, internal procedures etc.)
• Taking up references (e.g. from past customers)
• Interviewing the expert third party's employees
• Verification of the design of the study

During the study
The Verification Office will attend critical meetings with the Company or companies, such as the intake meeting and the presentation of the final report. The Verification Office also has the right to observe the performance of the study and to request information on the methods, etc.

On completion of the study
The Verification Office will check whether the final report is complete and reliable and whether it meets the requirements set, and will compare it with monitoring reports and any earlier studies. To this end, the Verification Office must have access to all the data used in the study.

The tasks of the Verification Office can be modified in function of the practical progress. The Commission Benchmarking will guide this:

For example:

• " for some sectors or companies benchmarking can create specific problems; the Verification Office is the authority that evaluates and judges these problems. The Commission Benchmarking is given advice about a possible approach.
• " the task of the Verification Office also includes advising several authorities. The energy plans of the Covenant are recognized by "Besluit Energieplanning", which is part of the environmental permit. In the European Emission Trading System for greenhouse gasses, the Verification Office delivers the necessary references for the allocation of the emission rights.

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