Case Study: Age Concern London
Age UK London is a regional organisation within the national network of Age UK Charities. Age UK London acts as the collective voice of Age UK charities in London by representing all of its members at a regional level.
Sam Mauger, Chief Executive of Age UK London, was responsible for overseeing the implementation of both the quality management standard ISO 9001 and the environmental management standard ISO 14001, alongside Office Manager, George Clerk. Age UK London have successfully maintained the two awards since May 2009, and the following case study details their experience of implementing the standards as well as the perceived benefits for both Age UK London and for London-based Age UK charities.
Why ISO certification?
Age UK London acts on behalf of its regional members by securing
funding, conducting research to inform policy and practice, and
lobbying around social policy for older people. They also work
with regional members to identify local issues to inform their
campaign work, to access older people for research purposes, and
to develop new services for older people. As such, Age UK London
wished to take a leadership role in seeking and attaining the
quality management standard ISO 9001 to both maintain a
consistent level of quality within their own organisation and to
encourage its regional members to do the same. Chief Executive
Sam Mauger says,
“We thought it was really important that regional Age Concerns achieved an external quality standard, and ISO 9001 seemed to be the best around. Recently, there has been a greater push towards Age Concerns tendering for work, which is a completely different process from receiving a conventional grant. We wanted to say to Age Concerns that this is the quality mark you should be applying for, so we decided to go through the process ourselves.”
Age UK London’s reasons for obtaining the environmental
management standard, ISO 14001, differed slightly from their
decision to secure ISO 9001.
“Although some tenders do require ISO 14001 certification, we felt that we wanted to do something to make us think more about environmental issues. In fact, we have several members of staff that are very interested in making the organisation environmentally aware, so it was a good thing really - both as a team building exercise, and to demonstrate to our funders that we are operating responsibly.”
Why BAB?
BAB has over 40 years experience in the assessment industry and
the BAB brand is revered as a hallmark for quality and rigour.
BAB is proud to work with a large number of third sector
organisations, and regional Age UK charities represent a large
proportion of these clients. Sam tells us why she chose BAB over
the competition.
“BAB were recommended to us by another charity, and although we looked at two or three other certification bodies in terms of price, we actually found that from initial contact BAB were the most helpful.”
The certification process
Once an organisation decides to go-ahead with BAB, they are
assigned a Lead Assessor who remains the principal contact
throughout the registration process and beyond. Prior to a
formal Audit, the Lead Assessor visits to explain the standard
and undertakes a conformity evaluation of the organisation’s
current arrangements for quality management. The organisation
then receives a detailed report including all required actions
and together, with their Lead Assessor, determine an appropriate
timetable for the Audit Assessment.
Whilst Sam was responsible for overseeing the implementation, George Clerk, Office Manager, had day to day responsibility for ensuring that Age UK London was compliant with the two standards and putting the necessary procedures in place. Below is an account of George’s experience of implementation.
"Although the processes we had to
implement to conform to the standards didn’t present a huge
change for our organisation, it did make us take a step back to
see if we could operate in a more standardised way. It opened
our eyes to many things that we took for granted and although we
were doing many of the activities needed, there was room for
improvement. In particular we have improved the way in which we
record and store evidence - for example all meetings are now
recorded and we now put more documentation online. Implementing
ISO 9001 has allowed us to operate in a more standardised way by
adhering to a level of quality that is now maintained by the
whole organisation.”
“We decided to implement ISO 9001 and 140001 concurrently, which made it quite wholesome as it enabled us to look at all aspects of the organisation, rather than treating them as separate entities - we found this approach very useful.”
Once an organisation is ready for a formal Audit Assessment, an
assigned Lead Assessor makes the required arrangements for an
Audit to take place. George says,
“The run-up to the audit is always quite frightening - you think; have you really done what they require? However, having by following the guidelines and the schedule, and being able to show the evidence of what you set out to accomplish, it actually wasn’t as daunting as I thought. The auditor was approachable and I was able to run through the things I had done confidently.”
“We found the audit report very useful; when they put the report together they highlight areas you need to address to make sure you are constantly improving.”
Benefits of implementation
BAB is committed to helping their clients progress and achieve
outstanding results through the application of effective
standards and management best practice. The benefits of this
include a more motivated workforce, less re-work and increased
customer satisfaction. Clients tell BAB that gaining
certification can also help to gain funding, qualify for tenders
and set them apart from competitors.
A primary motivator for Age UK London in achieving the ISO certifications was to act as an ambassador to other Age Concern in London charities. Since gaining their certifications they have found that more Age Concerns are doing the same, and Sam sees this as a positive move for the Age Concern charities in London as a whole.
“Going through the process and achieving the standard ourselves has encouraged more Age Concern’s to follow suit. Demonstrating an external quality standard is becoming more important for Age Concerns. There is so much competition at the moment, not just in terms of tendering, but in all aspects of our work - be it selling services, fundraising, contracting - you need to be able to show that you’re an organisation that meets the standard, and ISO 9001 provides a way of demonstrating that.”
“We are looking forward to making our certifications a feature on our new website and are hoping that these will become more of a selling point for our services.”
George and Sam have also noted a number of organisational benefits since implementing the ISO 14001 framework.
“It’s been very much taken up by people in the staff team - we have done a lot of work around getting waste recycled and have started to look at sourcing more of our stationery from ‘greener’ companies. We are also starting to see some cost savings, from simple things such as making the effort to print double-sided.”
And finally...
George offers some great advice for others about to embark on the ISO journey.
“It did take us quite a long time to complete the first year; getting off the ground was the hardest part. Although the guidelines from BAB were very useful, it was difficult to visualise how the ISO framework fitted alongside our current practices. To overcome this, I was advised to visit an organisation that had already implemented the standards. I found this very beneficial - seeing what procedures they had in place and how it was working for them.”
Contact
Clare Tiley
The British Assessment Bureau
Research and Analysis Manager