Which quality standard?

There are so many quality standards systems in existence that the decision on which one to follow may be difficult.

Over the past four years, the government has invested heavily in the development of quality standards for the voluntary and community sector. Funders in Gloucestershire and beyond are becoming more aware of the range of quality standards on offer and are beginning to ask for evidence that the Third Sector organisations they fund are attaining or working towards these standards.

What is a quality standard?

This is a formal management system you can use as a framework to strengthen your organisation. It is intended to raise standards of work and to make sure that everything is done consistently. A quality standards framework sets out expectations that a quality organisation should meet.

These are the stages you should follow:

• Agree on which quality standards framework to use.
• Carry out a self-assessment. This means that you compare how well you are doing against these expectations.
• Set priorities. Decide what you need to improve or develop so that you can meet expectations.
• Draw up an action plan. This will include what needs to be done, who will do it, how it will be done and when.
• Implement. Do the work.
• Review. At this stage, you will check what changes have been made and whether they have made a difference.

What are the benefits of following a quality standards system?

• Better understanding of what you are doing and why
• Better understanding of what is working and what is not
• Services are improved
• Bringing people together makes them more motivated to do the best possible work
• You can prioritise where resources need to be concentrated
• Monitoring reports and funding applications become stronger and you can show stakeholders you are performing well
• Confirmation that you are a well run, efficient organisation - important in attracting staff and trustees
• Confidence for funders that you are an organisation that can deliver in the area assessed by the standard

“Going through the process of achieving a quality standard has helped us to come together as an organisation and make sure that everyone knows how we do things. We’re also getting some great feedback from our service users.”

How can the PIFA Project help?

We can talk through the characteristics of the quality standards framework you are considering and about what is involved in attaining them (including how much any external assessors would charge). We can also show you examples of the standards documents so that you can look at the types of indicators in place.

What quality standards are available and which one should we choose?

The quality standard you choose will depend on the size and nature of your organisation. Some organisations have one overall system and then supplement this with quality standards in specific areas of relevance - e.g. customer services or volunteering. For small, community based organisations, there may be a local or sector specific quality standards framework that you can use without charge. Then, if you wish, you could move on to more nationally recognised quality standard systems.

Here are some of the main quality standards available. (We will be adding information about these quality standards to this page in due course.)

C3PERFORM
CLUBMARK
CUSTOMER SERVICE EXCELLENCE
EFQM
HALLMARK
INVESTORS IN PEOPLE
INVESTING IN VOLUNTEERING
ISO 9001
MATRIX
PQASSO
QUALITY FIRST