How the Snubnose Assessor Alliance Works

The Snubnose Assessor Alliance is a partnership programme for Certification Bodies (CBs) that deliver Defence Cyber Certification (DCC) assessments under DefStan 05-138. CBs in the Alliance run their assessments inside the Snubnose workspace, receive applicant referrals from Snubnose's supplier pipeline, gain platform training and shared operational learnings from across the Alliance, and have direct input into the assessor-side of the product. No referral fees change hands. Value flows in clean form: workflow, leads, training and preferred-CB status.

The Alliance exists because the DCC scheme needs more qualified assessment capacity than the current accredited CB pool can comfortably deliver, and because suppliers are arriving in volume looking for both a guided path through certification and an assessor who already knows how their evidence will be read. The Alliance closes that loop. Suppliers reach a CB who already works inside their workspace. CBs receive applicants whose evidence has been pre-validated against DefStan 05-138 before the assessment begins.

Who the Alliance is for

The Alliance is for organisations that are IASME-licensed Certification Bodies for DCC, or are actively pursuing that accreditation through UKAS (or an equivalent national accreditation body) against ISO/IEC 17021-1.

In practice that pool overlaps heavily with IASME-accredited Cyber Essentials assessors moving into DCC, and with defence-adjacent cyber consultancies in the process of standing up a certification practice.

It is not for individual consultants, freelance auditors, or compliance advisors who are not on the route to formal CB accreditation. CBs in the Alliance remain independent, accredited businesses. The Alliance is a programme they participate in, not an employment relationship and not an exclusive contract.

What Certification Bodies get from the Alliance

Five things, each designed to compound the others.

Applicant referrals. Snubnose's supplier-facing site is a primary entry point for UK defence suppliers researching DCC certification. Many arrive without a CB selected. When a supplier reaches the point of needing one, Snubnose introduces them to an Alliance CB drawn from the preferred-CB list we hold on file. A CB joining the Alliance is joining a referral source that is genuinely difficult to replicate through outbound effort alone.

Audits run inside the workspace. Evidence arrives in the assessor's queue already mapped to DefStan 05-138 controls, pre-validated against the standard by Snubnose's evidence pipeline, and timestamped. The CB conducts the assessment, applies professional judgement, requests anything that is missing or unclear, and issues the certificate. The deterministic preparation work that historically consumed assessor time (chasing documents, verifying scope, structuring an evidence pack) sits with the workspace instead.

Platform training and shared operational learnings. Snubnose trains Alliance auditors on the workspace itself: how to verify scope in-app, how to review pre-validated evidence, and how to raise clarifications and findings inside the audit trail. We also share what the platform sees across Alliance engagements, including common evidence patterns, where suppliers typically stumble, and signals that flag a weak evidence pack early. CBs can act on that intelligence rather than discover it engagement by engagement.

Preferred CB status. Alliance CBs sit on the preferred-CB list Snubnose draws from when a supplier asks to be introduced to an assessor. Matches are made on factors the CB controls: level coverage, sector experience, geographic reach, current availability. They are not weighted by any commercial relationship with Snubnose.

A seat at the roadmap table. CBs in the Alliance have direct input into how Snubnose builds the assessor-side of the workspace. Where the product is wrong, CBs tell us and we fix it. Where the DefStan 05-138 control set has practical ambiguity, the Alliance is often where working consensus is reached.

Why no referral fees

ISO/IEC 17021-1 §5.2.3 prohibits a certification body from accepting financial inducements that could compromise impartiality. A platform paying a CB to take a particular applicant, or a CB paying a platform to be preferred, falls inside that prohibition. Any partnership model that relied on referral fees would carry impartiality risk that no UKAS surveillance audit should pass.

The Alliance is built to be unambiguously compatible with the standard:

• Snubnose routes qualified applicants to Alliance CBs at no cost to the CB.
• The CB pays nothing to use the workspace for Alliance-routed assessments.
• Snubnose funds Alliance training. CBs pay nothing to participate.
• The CB's commercial relationship with its applicant (engagement scope, audit fees, recertification arrangements) is between the CB and the applicant. Snubnose is not party to it.

This is a deliberate design choice, not a workaround. It is what makes the Alliance a durable partnership rather than a structural compliance problem for the CB.

How a Certification Body joins the Alliance

The Alliance onboarding has four stages.

1. Apply and intro call. A short conversation covering the CB's accreditation status, the DCC levels (0 to 3) the CB is qualified or pursuing accreditation for, sector experience, and current capacity. Where the fit is right, Snubnose issues an Alliance membership agreement.
2. Platform training. Lead assessors complete hands-on training on the Snubnose workspace and the evidence model: how to verify scope in-app, how to review pre-validated evidence, and how to raise clarifications and findings inside the audit trail. Training also covers patterns Snubnose sees across Alliance engagements, so the CB can act on them from day one.
3. Added to the preferred-CB list. The CB is added to the preferred-CB list Snubnose draws from for supplier referrals, with its level coverage, sector experience and capacity recorded so supplier matches are made accurately.
4. First engagements, together. Snubnose pairs the CB with its first Alliance-routed applicants and stays close to the first one or two assessments to surface workflow issues quickly. After that, the CB runs Alliance assessments independently.

There is no joining fee.

How the Alliance fits inside the DCC scheme

The DCC scheme has a defined structure, and the Alliance sits alongside it rather than inside it.

• DefStan 05-138 is the standard. It defines the controls and the four DCC risk levels.
• DCC is the certification scheme operated by IASME on behalf of the Ministry of Defence. IASME licenses Certification Bodies to deliver assessments.
• UKAS (or an equivalent national accreditation body) accredits CBs against ISO/IEC 17021-1, the standard governing certification body conduct.
• The Snubnose Assessor Alliance is a partnership programme with CBs that IASME has already licensed. It does not issue certificates, accredit CBs, vary the scheme, or substitute for IASME's role.

The role of the CB inside the scheme is load-bearing and cannot be substituted by software. The certificate is the CB's to issue, against the CB's professional judgement, under the CB's accreditation. Snubnose enhances assessor leverage. It does not replace assessor judgement, and the Alliance is designed so that the line between the two is unambiguous.

If you run a DCC Certification Body, or are pursuing accreditation, and want to talk about joining the Alliance, the place to start is the Snubnose Assessor Alliance page, or email contact@snubnose.io directly.