Appeals

1. What can be appealed

Any specific scored criterion a facility believes was assessed incorrectly — marked Not Met when real evidence supports Met, or assessed against the wrong track (Essentials vs. Full Standard). An appeal addresses a specific, identifiable finding, not a general dissatisfaction with the result.

2. Who reviews it

An appeal is reviewed by someone who did not conduct the original assessment — never the same assessor reviewing their own finding. Where the original assessor was a local partner representative, the appeal review sits with ASF directly, applying the structural separation described in TOUR-POL-02.

3. The process

1. Submit within 14 days of receiving the assessment result, in writing, naming the specific criterion and the evidence supporting the challenge
2. Acknowledgement within 5 working days
3. Independent review of the original evidence plus any new evidence submitted with the appeal — a desk review in most cases, a re-visit only where genuinely necessary to resolve a factual dispute
4. Written decision within 30 working days of acknowledgement, with reasoning, not just a yes/no outcome

4. Possible outcomes

• Upheld — the original finding stands, with the reviewer’s reasoning given
• Overturned — the finding is corrected and the overall score updated accordingly
• Partially upheld — a genuine middle case (e.g., the criterion was correctly Not Met, but a specific error in the cited reason is corrected)

5. No fee, no retaliation

Filing an appeal costs nothing and carries no risk of a harsher re-review out of irritation at being challenged — the reviewer assesses the specific evidence on the specific criterion appealed, nothing more.

6. If still unresolved

An appeal decision is ASF’s final determination within this process. A facility that remains unsatisfied retains whatever rights exist under the law of its own jurisdiction — this policy does not purport to override those.