Annex 3
COMMONS SELECT COMMITTEE INQUIRY: QUALITY
ASSURANCE SCHEMES
Since its inception, HRI has been at pains to
ensure that its quality management initiatives are driven by either
its customers, or the need for increased efficiency and effectiveness
in its operations. In 1993 it became clear that some of its customers
were beginning to expect formal assurance of quality management.
Both ISO9000 (then BS5750) and the Department of Health's Good
Laboratory Practice were considered. Good Laboratory Practice
(GLP) was chosen as the most appropriate for the near market work
at Efford, Kirton and Stockbridge House, all of which achieved
GLP accreditation within the following 12 months.
Between 1993 and 1996, the concept of Total
Quality Management (TQM) became established as the most appropriate
vehicle for achieving a wider quality culture change within HRI
and it consequently appeared in successive corporate plans.
A TQM Co-ordinator was nominated in 1996 and
later that year workshops were run with senior staff prior to
HRI's first assessment by Lloyds Register Quality Assurance under
the European Foundation for Quality Management's Business Excellence
Model (BEM), in January 1997. At that time HRI was also assessing
the value to the organisation and its customers of achieving Investors
in People (IiP) accreditation.The outcome of the BEM assessment
underlined the scope for improvements in HRI's people management
systems and added weight to HRI's public commitment to IiP. In
the meantime, a wider BEM self-assessment was undertaken which
further emphasised the potential value of IiP. Accreditation was
subsequently achieved, across of all of HRI's six sites simultaneously,
at the first attempt in 1999.
Although initiative overload was deliberately
avoided while the IiP programme was underway, HRI nevertheless
pursued a number of benchmarking and quality management initiatives
in parallel with IiP, including the following:
— HRI Wellesbourne hosted a BBSRC Engineer's
Conference on benchmarking.
— HRI took a key role in the Government
Property Benchmarking Club by joining its newly formed Steering
Group.
— IN 1998 HRI achieved "Official
Recognition" under the Pesticides Safety Directorate's quality
standard.
— Company visits were undertaken as
part of the DTI's Inside UK Enterprise Initiative.
— The usefulness of the Balanced Business
Scorecard was considered with KPMG.
However, the EFQM's Business Excellence Model
prevailed as the most holistic of the available models and in
1999 HRI subscribed to the DTI's UK Benchmark Index, which is
based on the BEM. Preliminary reports were received in November
1999. The final report, was recently completed and is now being
considered by senior management.
A number of HRI's senior managers attended government
benchmarking conferences in both 1999 and 2000, increasing awareness
of the potential benefits of using self-assessment and the Business
Excellence Model, especially in the context of HRI's impending
quinquennial review in 2002. The adoption by the Cabinet Office
of the BEM as the preferred mechanism for modernising government
is seen as a vindication of its earlier use by HRI.
Mark Woodget
Physical Resources Manager
17 May 2000
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