By the Charities Evaluation Service at WCVA's Annual Conference 2013.

1. PQASSO
WCVA Conference – 28th November 2013
Jan Aram
Charities Evaluation Services

2. What do we mean by ‘quality’?
The extent to which a product or service satisfies the expectations of
stakeholders
Charities Evaluation Services © 2012
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3. PQASSO is...
•
An off-the-shelf quality management system for the voluntary and
community sector
•
A step-by-step approach to identify what you are doing well and what could
be improved
•
A workpack that is simple and straightforward to use
•
An holistic and generic approach to quality
•
A self-assessment tool supported by evidence
•
A self-assessment tool that now has the option of external assessment.
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4. Who is PQASSO for?
•
PQASSO is suitable for small, medium or large organisations
•
It has been used successfully by large national multi-sited organisations
with over 1,000 staff
•
It has been used successfully social enterprises and industrial provident
societies
•
Very small volunteer-led organisations use PQASSO as a capacity building
tool, but cannot always complete it.
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5. Benefits of using PQASSO
For the organisation
• Assesses performance against
agreed standards
•
Promotes continuous improvement
•
Demonstrates quality of service to
purchasers and funders
Improves management systems
and organisational planning
Improves communication
•
•
For service users
• Helps users to know what service
they can expect
• Supports establishment of a usercentred culture
•
Improves opportunities for
providing feedback resulting in
better services
•
Implementing PQASSO © 2012
Creates opportunities for user
involvement.
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6. PQASSO: the quality areas
PQASSO addresses all the key areas of organisational life
• Planning
• Managing money
• Governance
• Managing resources
• Leadership and management
• Communications and promotion
• User-centred service
• Working with others
• Managing people
• Monitoring and evaluation
• Learning and development
• Results
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7. Levels of Achievement
There are three levels of achievement in PQASSO
Level 1
Sets the minimum requirements that any organisation should meet. Helps
organisations to identify and meet their legal obligations.
Level 2
Requires organisations to be more strategic in their approach and most
policies, procedures and practices to be documented.
Level 3
Requires resources and all aspects of organisational life to be systematically
reviewed, with reviews resulting in measurable change.
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8. Overall
planning
PQASSO
Quality
Mark
Prioritise
quality areas
Detailed selfassessment
Review
action
The
implementation
cycle
Collect
information
Implement
agreed action
Develop
action plans
Implementing PQASSO © 2012

9. Introducing the PQASSO Quality Mark
• PQASSO Quality Mark is the externally assessed service for
PQASSO users
• It is an optional service which builds on self-assessment
• It uses a peer review approach which:
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verifies judgements made by self-assessment
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keeps learning within the sector and develops staff skills
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10. www.ces-vol.org.uk
020 7713 5722
pqasso@ces-vol.org.uk
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