UKCES

The UK Commission for Employment and Skills worked with a wide range of stakeholders to develop and build consensus on the NOS Strategy. The four governments of the UK approved the NOS Strategy for 2010-20 at the end of March 2010 and agreed that the UK Commission should work with stakeholders in 2010/11 to prototype and pilot a number of aspects and evaluate these by the end of March 2011, to enable the full roll out of the Strategy from April 2011.

This work has resulted in four papers:

• NOS Strategy 2010-2020 - The vision driving this strategy is that, by 2020, high-quality NOS will be widely used both by awarding organisations/bodies for developing qualifications, and also by employers and other stakeholders to underpin their human resource management processes and strategic business developments. The progress of this strategy will be monitored and evaluated in against the key twelve objectives contained in the Strategy. Work will begin in 2010-11 towards the first nine objectives. The last three are longer-term objectives and will be addressed later in the decade.
  Download the Word doc
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• Implementation Plan 2010-2011 (this is a working document to reflect the timing and scope of work which will take plac during 2010/11)
  Download the XLS spreadsheet
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• NOS Quality Criteria with Explanatory Notes – all NOS developed from April 2010 are required to meet the new NOS Quality Criteria. These Quality Criteria have been developed by the UK Commission in partnership with Sector Skills Councils (SSCs) and other standards setting organisations, who are responsible for developing, maintaining and implementing standards which specify the performance required of people in the workplace. Together with the Guide and capacity and capability building activities, the Quality Criteria underpin the NOS Strategy 2010-2020, which places the responsibility for quality assurance of NOS firmly with SSCs and other standards setting bodies.
  Download the Word doc
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• Guide to Developing NOS – this is a guidance document for people involved in NOS work. This guide compliments and expands relevant sections of the 2010 version of the National Occupational Standards Quality Criteria. We hope it will provide practical guidance for those staff in SSCs and other standards-setting organisations who are responsible for developing, maintaining and improving NOS for employers and staff in their footprints. This guide is also being used as the basis for a training programme for NOS developers and line managers, which is currently being piloted.
  Download the Word doc
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Please email Josie Armitage if you would like any further information or want to discuss any aspects of the NOS Strategy.