The objective of International Workshop Agreement IWA 4:2009 is to provide local governments with guidelines for the voluntary application of ISO 9001:2008 on an integral basis. These guidelines do not, however, add, change or modify the requirements of ISO 9001:2008.

For a local government to be considered reliable, it should guarantee minimum conditions of reliability for the processes that are necessary to provide all the services needed by its citizens in a consistent and reliable manner. All the local government's processes, including management, core, operational and support processes, should constitute a single, integral, quality management system. The integral character of this system is important because, otherwise, although a local government could be reliable in some areas of activity, it may be unreliable in others. For a government to be considered reliable, it should guarantee minimum conditions of reliability for all key processes and services. To achieve this, it is advisable that the local government clearly identify the management, core and support processes that, together, make it reliable (see Annex A). Annex B provides a diagnostic tool for local governments to evaluate the scope and maturity of their processes and services.