PQASSO is a quality assurance system that many Voluntary & Community Sector organisations – including DPULOs – think about. Below, Shopmobility Lochaber – a DPULO based in Inverness-shire, Scotland – share their detailed experiences of obtaining PQASSO.

1. Shopmobility Lochaber: our experience with PQASSO
PQASSO is a quality assurance system that many Voluntary &
Community Sector organisations – including DPULOs – think about.
Below, Shopmobility Lochaber – a DPULO based in Inverness-shire,
Scotland – share their detailed experiences of obtaining PQASSO.
When you say the word PQASSO to people, they
immediately think of the painter. In fact if the truth be
known, when we first heard about this quality mark,
we had the same thoughts, and what does a famous
painter have to do with our organisation?
PQASSO actually stands for Practical Quality Assurance System for
Small Organisations.
However, when our local Voluntary Action office sent us the details of
PQASSO, we knew that it was something we had to have, if we were to
prove our organisation to be a robust, properly run, fit for purpose
charity.
The Charities Evaluation Service, who implement the PQASSO standard
and train mentors for PQASSO training, have undertaken research that
has shown organisations using PQASSO have:
• more effective and more efficient organisational systems and
procedures
• better quality of services for users
• better communication among staff, trustees and volunteers
• increased motivation for staff, trustees and volunteers
• greater credibility and legitimacy with funders
• more creative thinking, enabling new perspectives and ways of
working
• organisational learning
• continuous improvement over time.
There has never been a more important time for you to ensure that you
work efficiently and effectively with the resources you have available.
Voluntary and community organisations, social enterprises and other
organisations with a social purpose all need to think about how to do
more with less and prove their worth to funders and commissioners.

2. Whether you are a small community group changing society through
localised voluntary action, or a big multi-sited charity or social enterprise
delivering large government contracts, you’ll need evidence-based
methods and tools to develop and demonstrate the value of your work.
PQASSO offers you a tried and tested way to develop, with a menu of
options to meet your support needs.
PQASSO sets out what organisations need to have in place in order to
ensure sound governance practices, financial and risk management
procedures and a robust system for measuring their outcomes – and
sets out a path to continuous improvement for those starting off.
Organisations must be able to demonstrate the quality of their work in
order to bid successfully for public sector contracts. Once organisations
have implemented PQASSO, they can do this through the PQASSO
Quality Mark, the external accreditation for PQASSO users.1
We had the offer of free training on PQASSO, providing we signed up for
the first training group. When we found out the next training group could
cost as much as £700, we had no hesitation in signing up. The training
took place in November of last year and was held over two very
demanding and intensive days.
We knew we had a lot of work to do as PQASSO is split into 12 sections
and each section deals with different areas of the administration and
running of small organisations like ours. Little did we realise just how
much work was involved.
We set up a working party of 4 of our volunteers, along with the staff
who had been at the official training. PQASSO is an evidence based
quality mark, so we had to start and gather all of our evidence. The early
sections deal with governance and finance, where copies of constitution
etc have to be provided. We set upon a system for numbering the
evidence sheets and got our folder set up.
Our groups met once a week, with regular reports being given to the
trustees at all of their meetings. PQASSO was becoming a major part of
our workload.
While gathering our evidence for PQASSO, we were also working our
way through the Volunteer Friendly Awards, designing a new website,
repopulating our past years database, which we lost along with the

3. website, when we were hit with a computer virus and also implementing
a change of status from a Registered Scottish Charity, to that of a
Scottish charitable Incorporated organisation. Add to that the fundraising
events that we organise on a regular basis, and the clients who come to
hire equipment, and all the regular workings in the office and that will
give you a measure of what a big challenge we have faced and dealt
with admirably over the last 12 months.
Our initial target for completing PQASSO was 6-9 months, but due to the
workload we had, we soon realised that this was being a bit ambitious,
so after the 6month, we decided that if we could manage to complete it
within a year, this would be considered an achievement.
In May, we were awarded the Tom Hillier Award for outstanding
Customer Service within all the Shopmobility Schemes in the UK, In
June, we were awarded the Volunteer Friendly Award.
We were the first group in the Highlands to receive both of these
awards. This was a real achievement for us considering we are such a
small organisation, having one full time and one part time member of
staff, ably supported by a team of 12, who are trustees and volunteers.
Our evidence gathering showed us that although we thought we had
everything we needed to function properly and efficiently, there were
some areas which needed tightening up and bringing up to date.
PQASSO is an excellent tool for a self health check of your organisation.
By September of this year, we had progressed to a stage where we
were close to asking for an assessment, so we called a meeting with our
PQASSO mentors. They checked all of our evidence, and after some
minor amendments and alterations, agreed that we should proceed with
the initial stages of applying for the quality mark.
We were given the contact details for CES and applied online to them for
a review. They sent us their invoice for the assessment fee, and to say
that we had a shock was an understatement. The assessment fee was
in excess of £1,000. We then had a problem of finding this money. This
is where the ODI came into their own. We submitted an application to
them for assistance with the assessment fee and assessors expenses.
We exchanged several emails and telephone calls with Audrey, who
then presented our application to the board for their consideration. We
were absolutely delighted when we received confirmation that we had
been successful in our application.

4. We then sent our cheque off to CES and our assessor contacted us.
Although we had gathered all of our evidence to match each section in
the PQASSO folder, we had to complete a peer review section and a
desktop review section, which meant more copies of our evidence,
numbered differently, but we finished it and sent it off. We had to hold
our breath for a while to see if this part was up to a standard where the
assessor thought we were ready for a site visit.
Our assessor then wrote back saying she had reviewed our submission
and we in fact were ready for our site visit. The visit was arranged for
November 5 - Guy Fawkes Day! At least we were assured there was
going to be some fireworks that day. Whether they were the exploding
sky lighting ones, or ones that we made in our office remained to be
seen.
We were given a timetable of events by our assessor and after the
desktop review, we received the timetable for the day. We had to
arrange for more than half of our committee and volunteers to be
present at the office at set times throughout the day. Each was given a
half hour interview slot.
By the time lunchtime came and we were halfway through our day, we
had a brief chat with our assessor and she confirmed that we had no
problems so far. Long may that happy state of affairs continue.
The interviews carried on through until the early afternoon and the
feedback from the volunteers was very positive.
At around 4pm the assessor had a debrief with us and wrote up her
report, giving us the good news that we had passed our assessment.
Her feeling was that we excelled in the sections which cover our clients
and our communication and promotion.
This was a huge relief to us. We had put a tremendous amount of effort
into this project and to finally be told the work was worth it was actually
quite emotional.
We are now committed to taking our charity forward, strengthened by
the knowledge that we are looking after our staff and volunteers, but
more importantly our clients. We are also now a more attractive
proposition for future funders. Anyone who has the PQSSSO standard
will know how we feel.

5. We are the first organisation in Lochaber and indeed the whole of the
Highland Region to achieve our PQASSO mark. It is a true testament of
the work and close family-type spirit that exists in our office.
1 www.ces-vol.org.uk/PQASSO/pqasso-the-basics