The Impact Partnership - awarded a hattrick of accreditations

from left to right, Impacts managing director Chris Lavery, LRQA's Mike Richards, Impact's assurance manager John Shields, Impacts environmental manager, Sophie Browne and Impact's operation director, Ian Buckley.

The Impact Partnership, a joint venture partnership between Rochdale Council, Mouchel Parkman and Agilisys that delivers property, highways, ICT, contact centre and business services in Rochdale, has gained three accreditations within its first year of operation.

Since the launch of the Partnership in Spring 2006, Impact has gained accreditations against ISO 9001:2000 for Quality Systems, ISO 14001:2004 for Environmental Systems and the British Quality Foundation’s Committed to Excellence scheme.

This achievement represents the Partnership’s commitment to implementing quality systems and delivering exemplary services within an environmentally aware framework.

Lloyd’s Register Quality Assurance (LRQA) conducted both ISO accreditations and the final assessment was one of the larger single visits carried out by LRQA, reflecting the broad range of activities undertaken by the Partnership.

Commenting on the ISO awards, Mike Richards of LRQA says: “It is always a significant achievement when a company is awarded an ISO certification. Although, what makes this bigger than most is that Impact has gained it against a bundle of diverse services, within such an intensive timeframe and across quality and environmental management systems. This was an ambitious challenge and is a clear demonstration of the organisation’s commitment to customer satisfaction.”

Impact has also been awarded Committed to Excellence, an entry-level scheme designed to help organisations introduce business excellence. The model is based on organisational best practice across Europe, and is used to identify and prioritise business improvement.

“It was critical in our first year to put in place strong processes and systems,” explains Ian Buckley, Impact’s Operations Director. “This achievement was made possible by the commitment shown by our employees. With the approval process complete, we will now push forward to accelerate our growth and continue to meet the increasing expectations of our clients.”