Celebrating 25 Years of Excellence Y 199 R A 1-2 RS
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IMPROVE PERFORMANCE • DELIVER QUALITY • ACHIEVE SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS EXCELLENCE
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1994
1992 Lord MacFarlane of Bearsden appointed President of Quality Scotland
1991
1992
1993
1999
Scottish Awards for Business Excellence launched – winners OKI (UK) Ltd and Blue Circle Cement
Sir Andrew Cubie becomes Chairman
Self-assessment model developed
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
1991
1993
1995
1996
1998
Quality Scotland formed
Quality Scotland initiates strategic direction for medium and long-term objectives
Sir John Ward becomes Chairman
European Quality Award Conference held at the Edinburgh International Conference Centre
Business Excellence magazine launched
Alan Devereux becomes Chairman David Justice becomes Chief Executive
Scottish Awards for Business Excellence held at Edinburgh’s Royal Highland Centre, Ingliston Winners were: Inland Revenue Accounts, Cumbernauld; TSB Homeloans, Glasgow; Vesuvius, Newmilns
Welcome At Quality Scotland we are passionate about sharing best practice and furthering our vision of “Making Excellence a National Characteristic of Scotland”. We are very proud to have promoted this message for the last 25 years and as part of our anniversary celebrations are delighted to share with you a range of customer case studies that will give you a flavour of how we can support you to embed excellence in your organisation. You will get to see the scope of activity that we cover and how new product offerings are having a real impact for many organisations with fantastic benefits being achieved in a short time scale. We continue to promote a flexible approach built and tailored to your needs and challenges. We all know it’s not always an easy path to take but the benefits of pursuing excellence in all that you do pays dividends in so many ways, why wouldn’t you want to be part of an excellence culture and strengthen the economy of Scotland as a consequence. We look forward to engaging with many more organisations across Scotland in the coming years and connecting you with Scottish, British, European and Worldwide best practice. For those yet to embark on an excellence journey I hope you all feel inspired to take up the excellence challenge and for those continuing on your journey we look forward to working with you in the future to support your own specific organisational needs.
Claire Ford CEO, Quality Scotland
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Craig Brown, the Scotland Football Manager presents the Scottish Awards for Business Excellence
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2001
2003
2005
2007
Gateway (electronic selfassessment tool) is launched
West Lothian Assessment Model conceived
QS Graduate initiative
Dave Bradley appointed Chief Operating Officer
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2000
2002
2004
2006
VSN Established
Mike Marron becomes second QS Chief Executive
The Annual Voluntary Sector Network (VSN)Conference is born
Public Service Improvement Framework (PSIF) launched
2007
Internet self-assessment takes off
Quality Scotland is an independent, membership-based, non-political organisation founded in 1991. From just 14 founding members, we are now a charitable organisation with over 200 members including companies such as Babcock and the Royal Bank of Scotland. We also work with ambitious SME’s as well as a wide range of public and third sector organisations. Our board of trustees includes members from organisations across each sector including: Scottish Water; Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS); the Institute of Directors (IOD); Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations (SCVO); Glasgow Housing Association (GHA); Scottish Government and Scottish Enterprise. What we do At Quality Scotland our mission is to ‘Make Excellence a National Characteristic of Scotland’. By doing so, we ensure organisations across Scotland are committed to being the best they can be by driving continuous improvement, while delivering sustainable success. We are the National Partner Organisation (NPO) of the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) – whose Excellence Model is the most widely-used Business Excellence Framework in Europe. As a National Partner we are the only body in Scotland licensed to assess against the EFQM Levels of Excellence and perform EFQM Accredited Assessor Training.
Engagement with Quality Scotland represents a commitment to organisational excellence, quality and continuous improvement. We have the expertise, products, services and people to stimulate continuous improvement across your whole organisation. We offer a range of products and services that can be tailored to suit the needs of your organisation such as:
• Facilitation • Accredited Training • Self-Assessment • Benchmarking • EFQM • Events • Leadership Programmes • Process Improvement • Recognition Schemes • Publications • On-line Tools Helping organisations improve performance, deliver quality and achieve sustainable business success.
Quality Scotland Membership Becoming a member of Quality Scotland is a cost-effective approach to your business improvement journey and provides a range of benefits.
• Dedicated Account
Management tailored to your specific needs
• Discounted member rates
to access events, learning journeys, training courses, case studies, webinars and on-line self-assessment packages
• Opportunities to network and
share best practice across the private, public and third sectors in Scotland
• Support with implementing the
EFQM Excellence Model in your organisation
• Free subscription and
opportunities to feature in Quality Scotland’s “Excellence Now” magazine and QS eNews
• Access to the exclusive,
members-only area of our website, which hosts Quality Scotland and EFQM resources.
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2011 2009
20th Anniversary
Ambassador Award introduced at Scottish Awards for Business Excellence at the EICC
Excellence Now Magazine launched
2008
2009
Record number of C2E recognitions
2010
2011
2013
2015
EFQM model 2013 launched
New CEO, Claire Ford appointed
IOD join Quality Scotland Board
Public Sector Network launched
Quality Scotland invited to join EFQM Partners Council
Equip on-line self-assessment package launched
2012
2013
2014
2015
2008
2010
2012
2014
2016
Quality Scotland Foundation granted Charity status
A new version of the EFQM Excellence Model launched
Quality Matters Programme supporting Voluntary Action in conjunction with SCVO successfully completed
Attained Big Lottery funding of Third Sector Interface (TSI) Making Quality Count Programme in partnership with VAS
25th Anniversary
Quality Scotland sponsored the organisational excellence award at the Young Enterprise Scotland Awards
Parliamentary Reception addressed by John Swinney launched 25th Anniversary events programme
Quality Scotland moved to new premises and launched Training Academy Private Sector Network launched Successfully achieved Committed to Excellence Assessment and Investors in People reassessment Your Place join Quality Scotland Board
European Leadership Conference held in Glasgow Largest number of award entries received for Scottish Awards for Business Excellence
Accredited Training Tailored support and guidance
Expert facilitators
Process mapping Promotional opportunities
Online self-assessment tools
European recognition
Vision of excellence
Connecting you with Global Business Excellence
Balanced scorecard
Webinars
Building capacity in Scotland’s organisations Networking opportunities
Mentoring programme
Home of the European Foundation for Quality Management in Scotland
ISO
Lean Six Sigma
Benchmarking opportunities
Events
Members' Area of Website Strategy development
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Bespoke training
Successfully working across all sectors
2016
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Quality Scotland Case Study
Brothers of Charity Services (Scotland)
Committed to Excellence, 2016
Planning together for change “It took time and effort to become comfortable with the process but the journey was worthwhile. It has helped focus our ideas and support a shared commitment around continually improving what we do.” Charmian Ledsham, Director of Care & Support (CEO)
Background Brothers of Charity Services (Scotland) is part of a world wide organisation founded in Belgium in 1807. We provide a range of services and supports to people with learning disabilities and social care needs, including supported living, care home support with short breaks, and social enterprises providing training and work experience towards employment. In 2015 we celebrated 60 years of service provision in the Scottish Borders.
Using the self-assessment results, we identified three improvement projects around:
Why C2E? We wanted to focus on quality in a way that brought together the different aspects of our work and helped to drive improvement at a collective level in the organisation. Using a recognised quality approach with external support and independent assessment was felt to be a helpful and robust way to take us forward.
Completing the self-assessment as a Senior Team and involving the whole team at each stage of developing, implementing and reviewing the improvement projects was very worthwhile.
The Journey We started by undertaking a self-assessment, facilitated by Quality Scotland, to give us a baseline and highlight the areas we most needed to work on. This involved the full Senior Management Team, representing all services and departments, and it was very much approached as a shared exercise, with open discussion and collective agreement on ratings. The self-assessment highlighted key action areas in strategy, resources and results which rang true for us as priorities for the organisation and as areas where we recognised the need for a more systematic, continuous improvement focus.
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• Broadening involvement in Strategic Planning and
implementation to achieve continuous development
• Planning and managing our internal resources and systems more effectively in order to improve our efficiency as an organisation
• Systematically gathering information and applying results to improve performance.
The feedback on our initial draft project submission was a pivotal moment. It helped us recognise that we didn’t have to do everything at once and indeed that our plans would be strengthened by reducing the number of actions. This pulled the projects into much clearer focus and really helped us to progress. We started the process (with facilitated selfassessment) early in 2012. Soon after we entered a period of significant service change, affecting all areas of the organisation. This absorbed considerable time, meaning progress with our improvement projects was slower than expected. Alongside this it’s fair to say we struggled initially with the EFQM/RADAR language and format, feeling that each time we discussed the projects we were having to recap. Looking back we had inadvertently added to the difficulty by trying to address as much content from the self-assessment as
possible within the projects. From the point at which we streamlined the projects our progress was more consistent. We also took time to re-draft our submission when Quality Scotland updated the format, and this was useful as we found the new document had a more logical “flow” and was easier to follow. We made our final submission in October 2015 and were assessed in November 2015. The Future The process has brought us to a point of being more focussed in addressing quality improvement. We haven’t lost sight of the additional actions we identified for change through the self-assessment, some of which have been progressed within our strategic planning objectives. We embarked on our new five year Strategic Plan earlier this year and we see value in using the project improvement methodology to advance some aspects of our work under the new plan. Using an approach that is widely recognised and applicable across all sectors helps make our progress and commitment clear to stakeholders. The external accreditation aspect is helpful in confirming our progress and also offering an independent perspective that helps us stand back and challenge our thinking.
The Benefits • Increased engagement of stakeholders in helping us to formulate and review our plans.
• Useful learning and progress in developing and applying KPI’s across services and functions.
• Implementation and monitoring of the Efficiency
Savings Plan resulted in increased awareness and greater ownership by all members of Senior Management Team for costs and efficiency savings.
• Improved focus as a Senior Team on continuous quality improvement.
Hints & Tips • It may take time to become familiar with the language and methodology, and the examples provided may not relate particularly to your context. This can be a frustrating phase but stick with it and eventually things fall into place.
• Keep it simple! (We learned the hard way!). Limit the number of items in each project so there is a clear and manageable journey.
• Organisational changes – particularly the
requirement to respond to external factors – will inevitably occur alongside, and shape, the improvement journey.
• Use the advice and help available from Quality Scotland personnel and Network meetings.
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Quality Scotland Case Study
Committed to Excellence – EQUIP, 2016
Eildon Housing Association
“Using EQUIP for self-assessment was one of the most productive days we’ve spent together.” Eildon HA is committed to excellence in the provision of Housing, Care and Support services for the individuals and communities we serve.
Eildon is a registered charity, not for profit Social Landlord, registered with the Scottish Housing Regulator to provide a mixture of general amenity and sheltered housing provision. We are regulated by the Scottish Housing Regulator (SHR), the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCAR) and the Care Inspectorate. We are a business whose primary function relates to the provision of affordable housing for rent. To ensure we meet our key business objectives we have a rolling 5-year Strategic Plan, the most recent update of that plan is framed around six key objectives aimed at ensuring that we will:
In a time of increased volatility in our business area, our strategy is to continue on a path of incremental and organically delivered growth twinned with increased levels of customer satisfaction. Our core values are: • Caring: We care about what we do, the people we work with and the customers we serve.
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• exhibit the Highest Standards of Governance
• operate within a sound financial framework
• deliver high quality, responsive and affordable housing and support services
• deliver high quality, responsive and affordable care services
• deliver high quality homes and asset management services
• develop our organisational capacity by investing in our people and technical infrastructure.
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•
Committed: We work together to provide affordable, high quality homes, care and support services. Connected: We are part of the communities we serve and believe we can make a real difference. Creative: We are ready to meet the challenges of the future with enthusiasm and new ideas.
Why we choose to use EQUIP On 16 September 2015 we used the EQUIP on-line assessment tool to complete our self-assessment in a session facilitated by Quality Scotland. We decided to take this route after speaking to other RSLs who have undertaken selfassessment and we believe that our decision to use EQUIP with our Leadership Group, rather than
with a cross section of staff from throughout the organisation, was the right decision and one which led to a very positive, profitable day’s discussion. The output reports provided a thorough analysis of the Association’s strengths and areas for development. Three key strengths identified: • Partnerships and Resources
• Customer Results • Business Results Three key areas for improvement identified: • Leadership: Our leaders act as role models for our values.
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Strategy: Our strategy is supported by appropriate policies, plans and process.
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People: We have a culture of involvement and empowerment.
The Journey Following on from our selfassessment session the Leadership Group agreed that current, individual projects which met characteristics of the ‘Areas of Improvement’ identified through the EQUIP process should be developed into potential project proposals. The Executive Team was charged with selecting three
projects from those submitted which: reflected our areas of improvement, had a positive impact on work practices, and demonstrated clear benefits for the business. Of the seven project proposals submitted, the three listed below were taken forward on the basis that they best met the selection criteria. The three projects we chose to undertake were:
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•
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Employee Engagement: To improve levels of employee engagement within the organisation and improve absence and turnover KPIs. FRS102: To prepare Financial Statements of the organisation under the new Accounting regime (FRS102), have them independently audited and fully adopted by the membership at the AGM. Customer Request Line: To deliver an enhanced customer service for customer telephone repair requests, utilising staff resources efficiently to achieve an overall increase in customer contact and levels of customer satisfaction with our repairs service.
We chose projects which had commenced prior to our Equip selfassessment and had a time critical aspect to them. The outcomes from the EQUIP self-assessment day and the subsequent use of the RADAR tool assisted greatly in helping to meet the tight timescale we had set. Having undertaken EQUIP self-assessment in September we completed our submission document in early March 2016 with a view to completing the projects and undertaking assessment towards the end of May 2016.
The Benefits • Improved Absence (4%) and Turnover (5%) KPIs.
Project Leaders’ meetings were held monthly to keep projects in focus.
• We developed the skills to
Awareness sessions were held with all staff early in 2016 to ensure everyone knew which projects were being delivered and why. Individual project team meetings were held at regular intervals where applicable.
• Be clear about what you wish to
Assessment was undertaken on 26 May 2016 – assessors met with project leaders and a focus group of staff who had either been involved in implementation of a project or who had been impacted by the projects. C2E Level 1 – Project Validation achieved!
• Customer satisfaction levels
with our repairs service rose above our internal targets and exceeded the benchmark set by our peer group.
• We became one of the first
adopters of the new accounting regime which in turn provided the space to adapt the system as it bedded down.
• We identified some hitherto
unseen blocks in our workflows. adapt the project timeframes when the unforeseen occurred.
Hints & Tips
achieve from your project and tackle it with enthusiasm!
• Your project will not go exactly as planned, however there is almost always a means to keeping on track if you are prepared to work at it.
• Be alive to the potential to identify some unintended benefits from project implementation.
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Quality Scotland Case Study
Glasgow Bike Station
Committed to Excellence, 2016
Expansion of Volunteering Labour Inputs in accordance with best modes of business practices through Committed to Excellence (C2E) “This project was one of three that we successfully completed as part of our C2E certification. The guidance and structure of the support from everyone at Quality Scotland was excellent and made the process simple and rewarding.” Colin Freeman, Glasgow Bike Station
We have found C2E an invaluable tool to review our strategic direction, organisational structure, and customer and community engagement practices.
Glasgow Bike Station was set up by Greg Chauvet in 2001 to widen cycling participation in the Glasgow area; to communicate the physical and mental health benefits of cycling, and to promote a low carbon economy through recycling bikes. Greg had recently taken up cycling and had found that there was little in the way of affordable bikes, cycling transport infrastructure, bike training, and mechanical skill training that was suitable for beginner cyclists. As a result Greg set up Glasgow Bike Station. Since then, GBS has grown from a small stall in the Glasgow Barra’s market into a premises that includes a workshop, a warehouse, and a bike shop with spaces available for cycling training sessions and bike maintenance classes. It employs 30 people with 18 active volunteers. Why C2E? All our bikes are refurbished to Revolve quality assurance standards. C2E is a necessary component of gaining Revolve accreditation.
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The Journey The first step was assessing the overarching needs of the organisation, utilising the tools provided by C2E. In response to this needs assessment, we created a Volunteer Coordinator post dedicated to managing volunteers. We developed a job description and person specification and a time frame from development of post, to appointment of person was put in place by Greg and was successfully implemented in accordance to the time frame. Our organisation would not be sustainably operational without the great work that our volunteers do. The number of volunteers were low and they were somewhat disengaged as they were not managed as effectively as they could be. Additional supervision, training and structure would allow volunteers to become more productive while working at Glasgow Bike Station and provide better opportunities to move on to paid employment. Whilst it is important for any organisation to appoint staff who have previous experience in the role, it is also necessary to ensure a period of “bedding in” for a new appointee to learn about the unique dimensions of a given organisation. We found that by allowing the new Volunteer Coordinator to have some work experience within all our departments rendered him in a better position to assess needs for our departments and match the right volunteers to them.
One of the most significant “light bulb” moments was in the sudden realisation that a lot of the training required for volunteers can be sustained by the volunteers themselves. Whilst it is important to preserve some level of formal training from employees, we found that skills tend to circulate amongst the volunteer group and that the scope for peer education is very wide! Embarking on Committed to Excellence has given us the confidence to apply for other awards, including the Volunteer Friendly Award (VFA). This came about after recruiting a Volunteer Coordinator as one of our C2E projects, as we then went on to review all our policies and procedures for our volunteers. The Future Our future plan is to build upon the foundations created in this process by conducting an annual review of our overarching policies, practices, and training in relation to volunteering. We also intend to introduce accredited training for our volunteers to further strengthen their productivity and their employability. Entering business awards increases our awareness of good practice, strengthens our brand, and helps us to develop networks to maximise opportunities for
further business development. This added value can be evidenced by the wide publicity our organisation enjoys, our standing in the cycling community, and our outstanding reputation for contributing to the green economy whereupon we have found our place as a central civic institution of Glasgow. The Benefits • A 61% growth of active volunteers
• Six volunteers attaining Velotech Silver (Mechanical) Accreditation
• Five volunteers moving into paid employment at GBS
• Monthly social events for volunteers • A quarterly forum for volunteers to influence the strategic direction of GBS
Hints & Tips An initial needs assessment of the organisation enabled us to identify how many volunteers would be required. We then identified the Volunteer Coordinator workload, before recruitment began.
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ACOSVO Members and Strategic Partners
ACOSVO
SCVO Members
SCVO
Happy to Translate Members
Happy to Translate
Quality S Rea
Voluntary Sector Network Members TSI Members
32 Third Sector Interfaces
Voluntary Action Scotland Future Farmers
THIRD SECTOR
Autism Organisations CRNS Members
Community Resource Network Scotland
SEA Members
Social Enterprise Academy Housing Associations
Private Sector Members CQI Members
CQI
Institute of Directors
Private Sector Board Members
Royal Bank of Scotland
PRIVATE SECTOR
Your Place
TRAINING ACADEMY
Scottish Manufacturing Advisory Service
Catalyst Consulting
Wheatley Group Highland and Islands Enterprise
SQMC PERform Consulting and Development
Quality Scotland is a charitable, member-based organisation working across Scotland – in the private, public and third sectors.
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Scottish Government Board Member
Scotland’s ach
Scottish Government
COSLA Joint Improvement Team Leading Improvement Team
Local Authority Members
PUBLIC SECTOR
Leisure Trusts SOLACE
Public Sector Members
Improvement Service Community Planning Partnerships PSIF Community NHS Health Scotland
NHS
Health and Social Care Partnerships
NHS
Care Inspectorate Zero Waste Scotland
Revolve Accredited Organisations
Education Scotland Colleges
EFQM
Scottish Library and Information Council (SLIC)
HGIOPLS & Chairs
HMICS EFQM International Partners
Scottish Police Authority Scottish Enterprise Board Member
Scottish Enterprise Members
Scottish Business in the Community
SBC Members
Investors in People Scotland
IiP Accredited Organisations
We provide the expertise and resources needed to deliver continuous performance improvement, helping you to gain real and sustainable competitive advantage. Contact us today to find out how you could benefit from becoming a member: Tel: 0131 225 5765 Email: info@qualityscotland.co.uk
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Quality Scotland Case Study
North Ayrshire Council
Lean Six Sigma Award Winner 2015 Scottish Award for Business Excellence
How Lean Six Sigma transformed our service and customer experience “Being Recognised for Excellence and winning the inaugural Quality Scotland Lean Six Sigma award reflect the pace and scale of positive transformation taking place across the Council. Investing in Lean has helped us deliver significant change and improvement across our service delivery – so much so that it has now become a core part of how we improve and transform our organisation.” Elma Murray, Chief Executive
Being Recognised for Excellence has raised the corporate profile of North Ayrshire Council and is making a tangible contribution to its sector-leading and awardwinning reputation. Crucially, the accreditation has helped maintain the momentum of transformation taking place across the Council by an inspired and empowered workforce who are passionate about delivering excellent customer services. Lean has allowed the Council to completely rethink and revamp some of its processes. Those which have undergone a Lean exercise are now more effective and efficient and the Council’s customers are receiving an improved service as a result. Lean is fast becoming the key component of the Council’s transformational journey and is helping the organisation do more with less during this period of public sector austerity. Background North Ayrshire Council is a medium sized local authority situated on the west coast of Scotland. It delivers and commissions over 100 statutory and non-statutory 14
public services to the 138,200 residents in its mainland and island communities. The Council also provides strategic leadership from its headquarters in Irvine. The organisation employs over 6,500 people, 77% of which reside in the area. Its net annual revenue expenditure is just over £320m and since 2010/11 it has made almost £50m of efficiencies. Why R4E/Lean? Lean Six Sigma provides a structured approach to investigate an issue and deal properly with the root cause. The various lean tools allow a team to quickly understand a problem and it ensures there is a base line to measure the improvements against. The Journey The Council’s occupational therapy (OT) equipment store provides a range of OT equipment to customers across North Ayrshire. Demand for the OT service and equipment has increased by 48% in the last two years but that demand came with a decline in the standard of service. The Council used Lean to refine and improve the delivery process
and to help achieve one of its strategic priorities – supporting all of its people to stay safe, healthy and active. The main areas to be addressed were the lack of communication with customers to inform them of their order’s progress and the time taken to receive their equipment – the average time was 34.5 days Define The team produced an improvement charter outlining the information needed to progress the project and defined its purpose and goals, including the success criteria and the techniques to be used. The team then had 12 weeks to complete the project. Measure The existing process was defined during a workshop and revealed 57 stages. This process map was a crucial stage in the project – it was the first time the process had been mapped out to such detail and allowed everyone to see it as one tangible and continuous flow instead of several independent processes. A large sampling exercise also helped reveal an average referral process time of 34.5 days which then became the baseline for measuring improvement.
Analyse Operational staff took part in another workshop to help understand the existing process. It clarified the rationale for doing some of the value-add and non-value-add steps in the process. Improve The team tried remodelling the existing process but it was so broken that a new one would be more efficient. This fresh start provided opportunity to revisit the improvement charter and the ‘voice of the customer’. It resulted in more effective communication with the customer to keep them informed of the progress of their delivery. A two day and subsequent twoweek pilot of the new process allowed the team to test it and ensure it was fit for purpose. The pilot also helped the team gather data which was then used to assess improvement in performance against the original baseline. The results were encouraging and gave the team the confidence to implement the new process. Control A final project storyboard was presented on conclusion of the two week trial, detailing all of the achievements from within the 12 week period. The ‘control’ stage of the DMAIC process continued after project handover to produce the procedure manual and get the new process signed off and adopted by operational managers. Key Success Factors The ‘improvement charter’ was key to the project’s success. Completing this document drove the team to take time to identify what was critical to quality and to understand the ‘voice of the customer’. Being forced to fully understand the problem and
not jump to a solution based on “gut feel” ensured the team was working towards a customer-focused solution. The ‘control plan’ was also critical to the project’s success. A performance board to track daily and weekly performance was key to ensuring the OT staff retained their focus on customer service and a Bug Board (suggestions board) was used to ensure a culture of continuous improvement. This cultural shift has underpinned and sustained the process improvements which have significantly enhanced the customer experience. The ‘data collection plan’ ensured rigour and objectivity which provided confidence that the resulting performance measurements were robust and could stand up to scrutiny when challenged. A number of failure points were revealed which were causing delays and repetition in the process. This emerged using the process map and retaining the ‘voice of the customer’ as the test criteria to identify the nonvalue-add steps. The team identified that these failure points were the root cause of the delays and significant improvement could be achieved by removing them. How long to achieve recognition? North Ayrshire Council started to invest in Lean two years ago. The number of staff being trained has been steadily increasing as has the number of projects being successfully run using Lean. Our achievements were recognised in 2015 when we were awarded the Quality Scotland Lean Six Sigma Award, sponsored by Catalyst.
The Future The learning has been used to develop a Corporate Lean Programme and embed the use of other Lean projects like Kaizen Blitz across the Council. The Corporate Lean Programme offers staff practical learning and development support to help deliver the process improvements required to meet the challenges facing the Council. Kaizen Blitz takes the Lean methodology and truncates it so that the problem is examined and a solution produced and implemented within one week. The Benefits • 95% of customers are receiving their equipment within seven working days
• 34.5 days average lead-in time reduced to 1.5 days
• 76% of high priority requisitions receiving equipment within one day
• 57 step process reduced to 30 step process with 13 ‘right first time’ steps
• 100% of priority requisitions
being turned around within two working days
Hints & Tips • Don’t take quantum leaps from the problem to the solution
• Understand the problem
through data collection and not through a ‘gut feel’
• Stick with the methodology.
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Quality Scotland Case Study
GHA/Wheatley Group
Recognised for Excellence 5*, 2011 Scottish Award for Business Excellence, 2011
Leading with Vision, Inspiration & Integrity
Glasgow Housing Association (GHA) is one of the largest social landlords in the UK with 40,000 affordable homes for rent. A not-for-profit organisation, GHA is a registered charity, monitored and regulated by the Scottish Housing Regulator.
Background GHA is part of Wheatley Group – Scotland’s leading housing, care and property-management group. The group spans 17 local authority areas across central Scotland, providing homes and award-winning services to over 200,000 customers. GHA’s mission is ‘better homes, better lives, a better Glasgow’ and it puts its customers at the heart of everything it does. The Journey Our mission at GHA has always been a simple one – to create better homes and better lives for the 40,000 households we serve. In 2008 the prospect of turning that mission into a reality seemed a pipe dream. Customer satisfaction stood at 67% (44% for repairs service), staff satisfaction at 55% with absenteeism at 10%. Overall performance was poor and public image was at an all-time low. A further threat came in the form of a tough economic climate and plans by the UK government to change welfare benefits that would significantly reduce the income of our customers. 16
Take a look at GHA today and you see a very different picture. Customer satisfaction stands at 90%, staff satisfaction is high, performance is up, our stakeholders regularly praise our work and other organisations visit us to learn more about our journey.
recognised for Excellence 5 star and were awarded the Scottish Award for Business Excellence by Quality Scotland.
The first phase of our journey to excellence came through Common Systems Common Sense. In 2008 we began to use systems thinking to reorganise our core processes to strip out waste and focus on delivering results for customers. Performance improved substantially. For example, the number of days it took to let homes reduced by 70% and bad debt by 50%.
But the real shift came through “Think Yes”, our staff empowerment campaign, designed to give staff the confidence and skills to deliver tailored solutions for customers. Out went the command and control style of management and the culture of escalation. The power to delight customers lay in the hands of frontline staff who were trusted to make the right decisions at the first point of contact. Leaders took on the role of enablers, supporting staff and removing issues which were preventing them from saying “yes” to customers. The campaign was launched with face-to-face events fronted by GHA’s Chief Executive Martin Armstrong, now Chief Executive of Wheatley Group, and sustained through high-impact communications and a development programme for leaders.
In 2009 our Leadership team committed to using the EFQM Excellence Model as the key framework to help us deliver our ambition. By 2011 we achieved
More efficient working and empowered staff have enabled GHA to reduce layers of management and divert more staff to dealing directly with customers.
How was such a transformation achieved? GHA transformed its culture by developing and empowering staff to put the focus firmly on the customer and to make decisions quickly and effectively every time.
“Large organisations like Wheatley need to be nimble and responsive to each individual customer’s expectations and needs,” he explained. “In yesterday’s world, housing, care and property management providers dictated to their customers what they believed to be right for them. What we actually need to do is to engage individually with our tenants, factored homeowners and the people who need our support to enable them to choose what, when and how we serve them.
But more had to be done if we wanted to continue our journey to excellence while delivering value for money. In Spring 2012, GHA formed a partnership with Cube Housing Association. This paved the way for the new parent company – Wheatley Group, to be created. The Group now brings together six social landlords including GHA, two care organisations and two commercial subsidiaries. By working together, sharing resources, services and expertise with other partners, GHA can do more to help customers and communities than it could on its own. The Group’s ability to attract financing from both public and private sources has been expanded with plans to build thousands of new homes over the next 10 years. And we are able to offer a wider range of innovative services to support tenants. These include increased help to get into work,
training or education, advice on money matters and a furniture recycling programme to help tenants who do not have the means to furnish their house. In 2013 EFQM recognised GHA’s achievements in continuous improvement with the “Leading with Vision, Inspiration and Integrity” prize at the 2013 EFQM Finals in Vienna, Austria. The Future Our journey to excellence continues and GHA, as the powerhouse of Wheatley Group, is now well on the road to turning its mission of “Making Homes and Lives Better” into a reality. The aim is to encourage and empower Wheatley’s customers to tailor the services they, their families and communities need. It is a concept based on Chief Executive Martin Armstrong’s strong belief there is no such thing as a “universal customer”.
“To do that, and remembering many of those customers are vulnerable, we need not only to harness the very latest technology and to employ best practice from both private and public sectors, but to find new ways to develop their confidence and ability to help us design, select and draw down those services.” At Wheatley, 2500 staff are setting about this ambitious vision by taking their award-winning “ThinkYes” attitude and culture to the next level by delivering great customer outcomes through the Group’s “W.E. Excel” campaign. The Benefits • Customer satisfaction level increased from 67% in 2008 to 90% in 2015 and 2016
• One of only a few organisations in the UK to be awarded Investors in People (IiP) platinum status
• Other accolades include
Customer Service Excellence, EFQM Recognised for Excellence 5 Star, Scottish Award for Business Excellence Award Winner 2011, Winner of EFQM Leading with Vision, Inspiration and Integrity prize 2013.
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Quality Scotland Case Study
Scottish Autism
Recognised for Excellence 3*, 2015
Using Autism Practice Improvement Framework (APIF) enabled Scottish Autism to embed quality initiatives at service level and promote localised improvement planning to add value for customers. “Partnership working with Quality Scotland has benefited Scottish Autism in so many ways. Supporting us to achieve and maintain a pathway on our journey to excellence, opening up networking opportunities and raising the awareness of autism.� David Harkins, Quality and Risk Manager
Background Scottish Autism is an organisation dedicated to enriching the lives of people with autism. We are the largest provider of autism-specific services in Scotland and a leading authority and advocate for good autism practice. Our network of services across the country provides a wide range of support options for children and adults, each focused on improving quality of life. We also seek to share our knowledge and expertise with parents, carers and other professionals in order to support the development of skills and strategies needed to provide the best opportunities and support for people with autism. Why APIF/R4E? We applied for the Recognised for Excellence award to establish our main strengths and where we needed to improve. It helped us to relate our business practices to the EFQM Excellence Model. However, to add value for our service users and staff, we worked with Quality Scotland to design the Autism Practice Improvement Framework (APIF), a bespoke version of PSIF.
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With a specific focus on practice improvement, it links directly to the people and customer sections within the PSIF model. This allowed more people involvement across the organisation and more localised improvement planning. We also created a fulltime role for an APIA Autism Practice Improvement Advisor to drive forward APIF and Areas For Improvement across the organisation. The Journey Our journey began in 2012 on the back of an intense period of selfassessment using PSIF. This enabled us to scrutinise every aspect of our organisation, identifying our strengths and areas for improvement. This required time, dedication and commitment from many people across the organisation. We used three top areas for improvement from the selfassessments to apply for the Committed to Excellence Award, which we successfully achieved in June 2013. Feedback from Quality Scotland helped us to drive forward our areas for improvement and look at applying for Recognised for Excellence.
There have been very few issues along the way as the buy-in and support from our senior managers has been excellent throughout our journey. Getting people to understand RADAR and use this in working practice has been useful to many people. The Recognised for Excellence planning process required careful coordination and commitment from a wide range of people across all levels of the organisation. This collective input helped develop a more detailed submissions document that, for the first time, captured the whole organisation. Timescales preorganised by Quality Scotland helped us to plan appropriate schedules for our projects. Working with Quality Scotland has opened up valuable networking and partnership working opportunities for Scottish Autism. Networking with others who were either applying for or have achieved the award provided valuable knowledge and experience sharing. Scottish Autism applied for the Recognized for Excellence award in December 2014 and were successful in achieving a 3 star award in June 2015.
Feedback from the Recognised for Excellence award has driven forward improvements within the organisation, linking this to our performance management systems and processes. We intend to apply again for Recognised for Excellence in December 2016.
in other teams, allowing them to share evidence of good practice and work together to develop improvement projects. Staff commented that mixing with staff and hearing about other services lessened the fear of working in other services with other teams.
APIF was designed by an experienced group of staff within Scottish Autism as a bespoke adaptation of the theory and methodology used in PSIF, with specific focus on continuous improvement of our practice and service delivery. APIF is underpinned by Scottish Autism’s practice ethos, strengthening the organisation’s vision and values. There are seven themes encompassing statements which services and individual practitioners can use for selfassessment.
The self-assessments allowed staff teams to reflect, rate and quantify where they were with their autism practice. This information has given a clear picture of practice across Scottish Autism and can inform further organisational change and development.
Our APIF teams, with front line practitioners and support staff, were set up in all regions to complete self-assessments using RADAR methodology to identify strengths and areas for improvement within services. Scottish Autism is a large and expanding organisation covering a wide geographical spread across Scotland. The collaborative nature of APIF has improved communication connections between staff teams to link up to a holistic way of working together to make improvements. Focus groups were held after assessment days to identify the top three AFI’s for each assessment team. This helped them to participate in the process, be reflective and mix with colleagues
APIF teams developed action plans from self-assessments for their top three AFIs with support from the Autism Practice Improvement Advisor. All action plans aim to improve areas of autism practice within services which in turn improve the lives of the individuals we support. Progress is communicated to management and service staff through team meetings and the organisation’s intranet. Implementation of APIF has ensured that the organisation’s quality initiatives are accessible and pertinent to staff of all levels. The number of staff involved in APIF assessments continues to grow and there are currently 9 APIF teams in total across Scotland, involving over 50 staff members (66% Support Workers and Autism Practitioners, 34% Autism Advisors, Learning & Development partners, Senior Autism Practitioners and New Struan School Staff). 508 AFIs identified in total from 9 assessments (ranging between 46 and 74 per team, average of 56). The number of AFIs demonstrate
staff’s engagement with the statements and understanding of the framework. Various themes of AFI’s emerged, including; Communication; Knowledge sharing; Training & Development. Collaboration with Quality Scotland enabled Scottish Autism to refine and successfully embed APIF into services. We intend to expand APIF as Scottish Autism grows it’s services and to get as many people involved as possible. The Benefits
• EFQM provided a structure
to develop a bespoke autism practice quality framework
• Increased understanding of
continuous improvement as a perpetual journey
• Provides a holistic picture of the organisation and its activities and results
• Involved staff at all levels across the organisation in quality initiatives and improvement projects
• Helped with our performance
management systems, change management and monitoring of areas for improvement
• Improved our practice to deliver a high quality service to people with autism across Scotland
Hints & Tips • Speak with other like minded people who understand EFQM/ PSIF and share experiences and knowledge with as many people as possible.
• Involve staff at all levels. 19
Quality Scotland Case Study
Committed to Excellence, 2014
NHS Lothian & West Lothian Council
West Lothian
Health & Social Care Partnership
How using the EFQM Excellence Model helped our organisations to successfully integrate “Achieving C2E is a fantastic milestone in the Health and Social Care Partnership’s journey towards excellence. The award demonstrates to partners, service users and to the communities of West Lothian the dedication and hard work of the staff, and their commitment to continuous improvement. As the first HSCP to achieve this award, West Lothian sets the standard as sector leading, paving the way for other partnerships to follow.” Jim Forrest, WL HSCP Director
NHS Lothian and West Lothian Council have a long history of working in partnership to meet the health and social care needs of people in West Lothian and has a well-earned reputation for delivering ground-breaking and quality driven public services. The creation of an integrated Community Health and Care Partnership (CHCP) in West Lothian in April 2005, jointly managed and accountable to NHS Lothian and West Lothian Council was innovative and at that time, a relatively new concept. This model demonstrated a move away from traditional models of health and social care, bringing together community based services. This has now evolved to meet the requirements of new legislation which was influenced by the existing WL CHCP model and is now a Health and Social Care Partnership (HSCP) with more formal arrangements and the formation of an Integration Joint Board (IJB) for Adult and Older people’s services.
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Why C2E-Assessment In our pursuit of excellence we successfully achieved Committed to Excellence (C2E)-Project Validation in 2014. To date, we are the only organisation of this type to achieve this award. C2EAssessment was the next logical step bridging the gap between C2E Project Validation and Recognised for Excellence (R4E). It also provided us with an overview of how our approach to excellence and continuous improvement is being embedded at every level. The Journey To support the integration of health and council services there was a need for joint quality and performance arrangements, and a robust performance management framework that meets national and local requirements. Using the EFQM Excellence Model and the ethos of ‘sharing what works’ has provided an ideal, common sense prescription for effective partnership working.
The following two initiatives are excellent examples of partnership working which support the vision of the organisation and the principles of integration to enable older people to live independently in the community with an improved quality of life. Care at Home Services The Support at Home Service was launched in October 2013 and aims to improve the experience for users by providing a single point of contact for adults and older people who require short term support in their own home. Support at home incorporates a number of services and due to the joined up nature of our work, increasing numbers of patients are able to be treated safely at home, saving bed days and minimising disruption for patients at what can be a stressful time for both patients and their families. Patient satisfaction measures are particularly high with 38% of patients achieving full independence and no further need
for on-going formal care supports after reabling intervention. A further 28% of patients require significantly less formal care with their longer term care personalised through one of the four Self Directed Support options.
Progress to date:
The Frail Elderly Programme The West Lothian Frail Elderly Programme was launched in April 2015 to identify where there is potential to implement improvements in efficiencies and effectiveness across the whole-system model of care for the Frail Elderly in West Lothian. The aim of the programme is to improve outcomes, individual experience, deliver value for money and establish a long-term and sustainable service. The West Lothian Frail Elderly Programme has identified four key project areas:
• The Capacity Modelling
• Frailty Pathway in hospital • Frailty Capacity Modelling in West Lothian
• Dementia and Functional Mental Health Redesign for the Elderly
• Supporting Health and Care in the Community
• The Frailty Pathway
project has resulted in the development and deployment of a Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment approach across the pathway. project has identified a number of potential changes in arrangements within hospital; these are currently being progressed.
• The Mental Health Redesign is
now located within the broader commissioning plan for adults with mental health problems.
• The Supporting Health and
Care in the Community project resulted in the successful redesign of the care at home contract resulting in significant efficiencies in the process as well as significant financial savings.
Customer Feedback Although both health and council had well embedded customer/ patient feedback processes in
place there was a need for a consistent approach to measure satisfaction rates across the HSCP. A quality development group was established and developed a customer/patient survey which supports the organisation’s objectives to provide ‘safe, effective, customer/patient-centred services’. Validated questions were used from the NHS Scotland Health and Social Care Survey 2014 and results of which also served as comparative data. Targets were set and performance indicators were agreed which were aligned to NHS Lothian’s ‘Our Values into Action’ and West Lothian Council’s Customer Service Excellence standard. Results are collated centrally using Snapsurvey software and services then developed improvement plans following analysis of the results. The role of the quality development group has evolved and developed over the last year and now provides an excellent platform for health and social policy colleagues to share good practice and discuss possible new, exciting initiatives for the HSCP.
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The Future Using the C2E Assessment feedback report will allow the organisation to focus on the areas that are in need of further development. This in combination with the possibilities of integration will enable us to push the boundaries and seek to deliver higher quality health and social care services. This will ensure people in West Lothian receive the care they need at the right time and in the right setting, with a focus on community-based and preventative care. R4E is certainly the next step and the journey promises to be an exciting and thoroughly rewarding experience.
The Benefits Using the EFQM Excellence Model has helped us to focus on and measure the right areas in order to improve our services and patient outcomes:
• The percentage of people
discharged from hospital within 72 hours of being ready to be discharged has risen to 42.9%, in comparison to the Lothian average of 25.9%.
• The emergency bed day rate
for people aged 75+ has been reduced by 11.2% over the past three years and there has been a 3.5% reduction in all age emergency admissions.
• Customer satisfaction rates have risen to 95%.
• 100% of people who use our
services feel safe from harm.
• 72% of staff would recommend the organisation as a good place to work.
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Hints & Tips • Take advantage of the wealth of knowledge and experience of Quality Scotland staff – it’s invaluable.
• Ensure RADAR methodology
is at the heart of everything you do. Try to embed RADAR across the organisation so your people understand even the basic principles. We distributed a simplified RADAR information sheet using the example of a customer survey and this worked well for us.
• It’s extremely helpful to have
people from the organisation trained as EFQM external assessors and then consolidate this learning by participating in an R4E external assessment. Understanding the assessment process, from an assessor’s point of view, makes it much easier to guide and support your organisation through either C2E or R4E validation visits.
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