The Bermuda National Standards Committee (BNSC) has welcomed four organisations as members.

Culture and Social Rehabilitation Minister Dale Butler praised each group for their efforts to become recognised.

"With the many challenges that the world is facing, the (BNSC) is delighted that charities and human service groups in Bermuda are choosing to participate in these demanding processes to ensure that the quality of care and responsible use of resources in our community are accountable and effective," he said.

"The Board of the (BNSC) is pleased to announce that the newly-accredited members of BNSC as of January 1, 2009 are Child and Family Services and Happy Valley Day Care Centre. These two Government service providers have demonstrated that they are operating at an international level of best practice accountability in all areas and will continue to report on their success and growth to the BNSC each year."

The Bermuda Cricket Board and the Centre on Philanthropy were certified in the same period, he added.

"These two groups have demonstrated that they are operating at an internationally accepted level of best practice in the areas of governance, finances, ethics, and performance improvement. They will also continue to report on their success and growth to the BNSC each year."

As explained by Mr. Butler, the BNSC is a group of donors, policy makers, and professionals who united to create opportunities for human service organisations and charities.

In 2005 the body established a memorandum of understanding with the New York-based Council on Accreditation (COA). The first international COA accrediting process was created through that agreement, which "includes a commitment to preserve the international standards and use international reviewers while maintaining a less expensive and more culturally relevant Bermuda operation".

According to Mr. Butler, several countries have sought to make similar agreements with the COA since.

"Since 2005, the BNSC has provided internationally recognised accreditation status to seven organisations in Bermuda that provide prevention and intervention programming in the field of human services," he added. "Three of those organisations are sections of the Government's Department of Child and Family Services.

"The other four are Bermuda charities. They each underwent a detailed site visit where international reviewers trained by the COA as volunteer auditors visited the applicants for accreditation to confirm the quality of their operations."