Groundwork achieves internationally recognised quality standard

Evelyn Brookfield (Quality Manager) and Vicki Devonport (Executive Director) hold the ISO 9001 certificate outside the Groundwork headquarters

Local charity, Groundwork has achieved ISO 9001:2008, an internationally recognised standard for quality management systems (QMS).

Groundwork has been awarded ISO 9001 following 18 months of development work and a week-long intensive audit.

The standard requires an organisation to meet a number of requirements focused on several quality management principles such as a strong customer focus and continuous improvement.

Executive Director at Groundwork, Vicki Devonport, commented on the charity’s success saying: “The ISO 9001 recognition could not have happened at a better time for our Groundwork Trust. At a time when we are looking to grow our business across Bolton, Bury, Oldham and Rochdale, it is great to be able to demonstrate proof of best practice. It’s all well and good telling people we are a well-run business but this award demonstrates this to customers old and new. We pride ourselves on the service we give and we are always keen to act on feedback in a systematic way.’’

ISO 9001 has provided Groundwork with a set of principles that ensures a common sense approach to the management of their activities which means they can consistently achieve customer satisfaction.

Groundwork also had their own reasons for wanting to achieve the ISO 9001 standard. As well as the continuous improvement of the organisation, Groundwork wanted to create consistency across their staff teams and projects. As a charity, the ISO 9001 accreditation is also beneficial to Groundwork when bidding for work. The internationally recognised standard proves to potential partners that quality management is central to the organisation.

Groundwork took 18 months to implement the standard in order to ensure effectiveness. A steering group was formed with representatives from each department. The group reviewed key processes in the Trust which were business critical such as safeguarding, staff appraisals and business planning.

Another aspect which was crucial to the process was the training of staff to be internal auditors, who worked in pairs to audit the various departments against process maps and ISO 9001 standards. Staff awareness sessions were also held to introduce ISO 9001, and later to update staff on the progress towards achieving it the accreditation. This created consistency within the organisation and ensured staff work to the same processes.