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Plymouth-based charity Routeways Centre Ltd. has gained Charter Mark, the National standard for excellence in public service.
‘We had achieved Investors in People status and, with many quality systems already in place from that, Charter Mark was the most effective next step,’
says Routeways Quality Officer, Daren Wood.
‘A lot of charitable and not-for-profit organisations in Plymouth have some quality systems in place but relatively few have achieved Charter Mark status.
‘We very much wanted Charter Mark as it's a prestigious, nationally recognised standard with the flexibility to cover all our projects. We also knew we needed to look at how we monitored and evaluated our customers' perceptions of our projects.’
Daren Wood says the Charter Mark certification process is clear and straightforward:
‘We started by forming a quality focus group made up of representatives of different projects,’
he explains.
‘With our assessor giving us advice throughout the process, the group went through the criteria and agreed what had to happen to meet the standards. Once a new system was designed, it was communicated to staff and written into Routeways policies and procedures. A quality co-ordinator monitors, collates and steers the processes forward to ensure motivation and continuity.’
‘We've already benefited immensely from Charter Mark,’
says Daren Wood.
‘Among the benefits, we're now receiving customer feedback from surveys, comment slips and training evaluations. Our staff value the various improvements brought about by Charter Mark, we now have a quarterly customer newsletter, our quality focus group continues to meet regularly and we're working towards a benchmarking policy.’