1. Proficiency Testing: A World-Wide Perspective

2. The National Research Council of Canada (Halifax) was contracted by CAEAL to: Prepare a report on the key characteristics of Canadian and international proficiency testing (PT) programs. Identify compliance with ISO/IEC Guides 58, 25, and 43. Review the rigour and costs of CAEAL’s PT programs relative to others.

3. Data Collection An independent contractor contacted over 100 agencies. Responses were received from 51 organizations. Summaries were produced by the independent contractor. Data were summarized in two forms:1. By program 2. By specific test group

4. Comparison of International Programs

5. Conclusions from Program Comparisons Broad range of program requirements. Apparent similarities between organizations applying ISO/IEC Guides 25 and/or 58. CAEAL program “fits” with the norm but is one of the few which meet the requirement for a concentration range.

6. CAEAL Versus Test Group Medians Note: “Same as” is defined as being within 10% of the median value.

7. Conclusions from Median Comparisons The “norm” is 4 rounds of 2 samples. CAEAL’s PT program has 2 rounds of 4 samples. CAEAL’s fees are: > above the norm in 2 test groups (PAHs and Pesticides in water) > near the norm in 10 test groups (PAHs in soil; metals in water) > below the norm in 4 test groups (cyanide; metals in filters; pH; TKN)

8. Conclusion PT programs offered by accrediting agencies are quite diverse. The SCC-CAEAL program was found consistently to be among the high-quality PT programs, no matter which quality parameter was considered. An important quality parameter which could not be addressed in this Report is the relationship of the concentration(s) in the PT samples to pertinent regulatory limits.

9. Conclusion In most cases, the direct (dollar) costs of the SCC- CAEAL PT programs lie close to the median values for all programs offering similar test groups. In two cases (PAHs in water, and pesticides in water), the SCC-CAEAL costs are significantly higher than the corresponding overall median values. These two cases require further investigation.