Decision Review.
A fair, independent check on a certification decision where there are valid grounds.
Overview
Before a formal appeal, decision review offers a route to re-examine a certification decision where a candidate believes the process was not correctly followed. It protects candidates from error while keeping decisions consistent.
At a glance
Valid grounds for review
- The published process was not followed
- Evidence was overlooked
- An administrative or scoring error occurred
How review works
PCI applies this consistently and records what it does, so the process can be checked and improved. The detail is governed by the related policies linked below and is published as the institute matures.
Common questions
Is review the same as re-marking?
No — it checks whether the decision policy was correctly applied, not whether a different view is possible.
Who reviews the decision?
People independent of the original decision, free of conflicts.
What if I’m still dissatisfied?
You can use the formal appeals process.
Why this matters
This matters because a credential earns its value from substance, not marketing — clear standards, fair process, transparent governance and honesty about status. Everything here is written to that test: useful to professionals and employers, and never claiming more than is true today.
PCI builds in the open. That means being candid about what is in place and what is still developing, designing around the ISO/IEC 17024 personnel-certification principles, and never implying recognition it does not yet hold. That honesty is part of how trust is earned.
- Substance over marketing
- Fair, transparent process
- Honesty about our status
- Responsible, governed use of AI
Founding-stage document · Version 1.0 — effective date to be confirmed · Reviewed under PCI governance. PCI makes no claims of accreditation or recognition beyond what is true today.
Getting a review off to a clean start
Decision review is deliberately focused: it asks whether the published process was correctly applied to your case. Requests that engage with that question move quickly; requests that argue the merits of the judgement, without pointing to a process failure, cannot succeed however strongly felt. Before you submit, re-read the decision notice carefully — it states what was decided and under which policy — and check your grounds against it.
- Identify the specific step you believe was not followed, or the evidence you believe was overlooked
- Gather references: candidate number, decision reference, relevant dates
- Note the published window and submit inside it
- Keep the account factual — the reviewer needs events, not advocacy
Review, appeal, complaint — which one?
Decision review
The first, lighter check: was the decision process correctly applied? Focused, quicker, and often enough to resolve a genuine error.
Appeal
The formal, independent challenge under the appeals process — heard by people with no involvement in the original decision, with a recorded outcome and reasons.
Complaint
For concerns wider than one decision — service, conduct or process in general — raised under the complaints policy.
The routes are complementary, not competing: a review that leaves you unsatisfied does not use up your right to appeal, and neither closes off a complaint about how you were treated along the way.
Outcomes, records and what they feed
A review ends in one of a small number of places: the decision is confirmed, with reasons you can read; it is corrected, where an error is found; or it is referred for a fresh assessment where that is the fair remedy. Whatever the outcome, the review itself is recorded — and those records matter beyond your case. Patterns across reviews are examined under PCI's continuous improvement processes, so a process failure found once is fixed for everyone, not just corrected for you.
Keep going
Who reviews a decision, and on what grounds
Any material certification decision — eligibility refusal, examination result, sanction, credential status — can be reviewed. The reviewer is always someone who took no part in the original decision and holds the authority to change it.
Grounds matter: reviews examine whether the process was followed, the evidence supported the conclusion, and the policy was applied as written. Disagreement with a correctly-reached outcome is not, by itself, grounds — that boundary is what makes review meaningful. Formal routes: appeals for decisions about you, complaints about our conduct or service.