Quality standards in the voluntary sector: join the debate
28th June 2012
Quality standards in the voluntary sector. A fascinating subject? A topic to spark debate and generate a huge amount of interest? I am pleasantly surprised to say yes on both counts. Honestly - please read on!
When completing research with our partners at OPM for the BIG Lottery Fund on the topic, the level of response we got to our survey, and the willingness of people to take part in interviews was an early indication that it was a topic people wanted to talk about. Returning back from being on holiday to an inbox full of emails from people wanting to engage in discussion about the report and its contents confirmed this to me, and the 2000+ people who have downloaded the report in the last few weeks further evidences this.
In response to the clear desire amongst people working in the voluntary sector to share their views, knowledge and opinions I am writing this blog to summarise some of these conversations and to encourage you to join in and share your views.
You didn’t include my quality standard. Why not?
Because we included standards that people told us about in response to our direct survey questions. I have been told about more standards, including the Rape Crisis National Service Standards and I am updating Appendix B to the report to reflect additions and amendments.
I have useful information – let me share it
More useful places for information and support that people have shared with me include: Accredited Providers Forum and Newcastle University Business School's work on benchmarking quality standards.
Can you do more work on this?
We’d love to. We were commissioned by BIG to do this work though, and there is no follow up resource to be able to continue work. However, this forum is a good place for discussion, networking and knowledge sharing so please feel free to use it and generate ideas about future work.
I like ISO and find it useful
One person contacted me to say this – they had been using ISO for over 30 years and did not find it onerous, and believed the comments were dated and did not reflect the current standard.
I want to talk more about this and be kept informed
Watch this space. Use it to network and share your ideas. And keep in touch with the Accredited Providers Forum, Charities Evaluation Service, and your local Council for Voluntary Service.
What about small community groups? Where do they appear?
We received survey responses from 27 representatives from organisations that can be considered small, with an income below £25,000 (9% of our sample). A clear finding across the sample was that the resources involved in working towards a quality standard prevented some organisations from doing it.
I had a very interesting conversation this morning with someone from Slough CVS about Simple Quality Protects, a standard developed for all sizes of voluntary organisations and being taken up in a range of areas. Another person recommended VISIBLE for community groups.
How are your recommendations being taken up?
This is a trickier one to answer. The remit of the research was a scoping study. We have the power to make recommendations, but not to make sure they happen. NCVO will do everything it can to fulfil the recommendations we make to ourselves and we’re keen to hear your views via this forum.
Do quality standards make a difference?
It depends why you want a quality standard. If it is to tick a box, no. But if you want to do things better and implement standards properly, they can be a great tool for continuous improvement. Good governance can really help with this, to quote from an email I received this morning – this ‘ensures that the foundations of the voluntary organisation are built on rock not sand’.
Well done! It’s useful and important research that echoes my experiences.
Thank you to everyone who emailed me simply to say this. Not only does it give us an even deeper confidence in our research findings, it means a huge amount that we are doing research that reflects the wider experiences of those in the sector that took part.
Please do comment and add your views and knowledge to this important topic.
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Ellie Brodie, Research Consultant, writes about the latest research, evaluation and consultancy projects from NCVO and our partners.
Comments
Quality Assurance is something that sometimes small organisations put to one side due to lack of resources. We considered this issue in Slough in 2009 and developed Simple Quality Protects with the voluntary sector. This is a great starting point for organisations to build up their confidence and to get ready to start a national quality assurance programme such a PQASSO or Visible. It's a local solution to a local problem. Can it work in your area?
As so often in the last few years, I read the comments about "quality" made by many voluntary sector organisations in the UK with despair! It is difficult to know where to start with this subject - perhaps it is the horror with which I read that the voluntary sector has 130 "quality" standards! The world's top quality standard ISO 9001 has been put together by many experts from many countries, over a period of many years and states in its introduction that it is for the use of any organisation, anywhere, of any size, in any sector. How come then, that a handful of organisations in the UK voluntary sector say it is not relevant to them? Then they come up with "quality" standards that have very little to do with quality, and they use keywords and phrases, such as "improvement", "quality", "effectiveness", "efficiency" and "process" so casually, without regard to their real meaning. So important are the meanings of these words and phrases (otherwise, there is misunderstanding, or a lack of understanding) that the first document in the ISO 9000 series is devoted to definitions and vocabulary. There is much more to be said about real quality standards, but I would urge people to be wary when someone says that something is "too process-driven" - everything in the world is process-driven: look it up in the world's top standard for quality.
Quality Assurance is not a competition it is a process especially for small voluntary organisations and they have to start somewhere. Groups need something 'Simple' before they prgress to standards such as ISO 9001. ISO 9001 initially feels expensive to small voluntary groups and this is why something like 'Simple Quality Protects' was created by the voluntary sector for the voluntary sector to enable them to progess on towards a national quality standard such as ISO 9001 or PQASSO. Groups find that some standards created by experts from many Countries are not relevant to their local area.
i totally agree David, we have been ISO accredited for two years now having in the past tried a number of "third sector quality standards" including PQASSO and ISO is more organised, cheaper, more widely recognised and yes it does allow us to continually improve, there is no standing still or "minimum quality standard" and as a small urban/rural CVS with 8 employees have found it gives us everything we need including scope to grow
It is interesting to note from your e-mail that the BIG Lottery Fund commissioned this piece of work. Blackpool CAB is the lead agent of a BIG Grant which has enabled us to develop a Fylde Coast Advice Network, covering Advice services from across Blackpool, Wyre and Fylde. We initially included Quality Standards into our bid to deal with the problem of the Community Legal Service withdrawing from Quality Accreditation for Advice Agencies (unless they held a specialist contract with them). Advice Agencies across the Fylde Coast have remained committed to developing and working towards quality standards - one of the key aspects of our work is to provide a consultancy service for Advice Providers seeking to introduce or develop Quality of Advice Standards. Our own Local Authority has recently implemented a requirement that beneficiaries of Council Grants/Contracts must have or be working towards a Quality Standard. PQASSO appears to be the main 'governance' related Quality Standard that organisations would like to achieve as well as Advice Specific Quality Standards. Cost is one of the greatest barriers for organisations.
Blackpool CAB originally took part in the National Quality of Advice Standard which was pilotted (thanks to Big Lottery Funding) a few years ago. We would be happy to share our experience and knowledge with others if desired.
We would be happy to hear about your experience and knowledge and have an event coming up in Guildford called 'Innovative approaches to Quality Assurance and Funding Models' on Wednesday 26th September at The Holiday Inn, Egerton Road, Guildford, Surrey, GU2 7XZ 9.30 - 4pm and Ellie Brodie from NCVO will be our keynote Speaker. As there are limited spaces you may wish to book now on at http://www.eventbrite.com/event/3729184090
Small organisations that wish to ensure a minimum standard of service can use ISO: but my experience is that most Chief Executives are more interested in ensuring that their organisation is on a continually improving upward path. This approach to quality recognises that quality is primarily determined by the strengths, quirks and idiosyncracies of staff and volunteers. Human beings tend to respond better when offered participation in a process where they feel they have some control over improving their own performance. Tick box systems alienate most people.
The QA systems that have been developed since the pioneering work by Deming provide a variety of guides. Just choosing one and attempting to use it for self assessment often improves performance just because it requires a degree of self reflection. With most of the organisations I have helped or run, the most useful and comprehensive structure has been the Excellence model developed by the European Foundation for Quality Management. It is a shame that many small organisations fight shy of this model because they believe (incorrectly) that it is only applicable to large corporations.
Respect is the UK membership association for domestic violence prevention programmes (DVPPs) and integrated support services (ISSs).
Respect has developed a standard and system of accreditation for Domestic Violence Prevention Programmes (DVPPs – for perpetrators of violence) and Integrated Support Services (ISS) for partners and ex-partners of these perpetrators. Details of our standard and the accreditation system are on our Respect website: http://www.respect.uk.net/pages/accreditation-project.html
We’re currently updating the standard and will be launching the second edition shortly. For further information / enquiries about the Respect accreditation standard & system please email info@respect.uk.net or call us on 020 7549 0578.