The Impact Partnership awarded A hat trick of accreditations

The Impact Partnership – a multi-service joint venture partnership between Mouchel Parkman, Agilisys and Rochdale Metropolitan Borough Council – has gained three accreditations within its first year of operation.

The Partnership, which delivers property, highways, ICT, contact centre and business services in Rochdale and across the wider northwest, has gained accreditations against ISO 9001:2000 for Quality Systems, ISO 14001:2004 for Environmental Systems and the British Quality Foundation's Committed to Excellence scheme.

This achievement represents the Partnership's commitment to implementing quality systems and delivering exemplary services within an environmentally aware framework.

Lloyd's Register Quality Assurance (LRQA) conducted both ISO accreditations and the final assessment was one of the larger single visits carried out by LRQA, reflecting the broad range of activities undertaken by the Partnership.

Commenting on the ISO awards, Mike Richards of LRQA says: “It is always a significant achievement when a company is awarded an ISO certification. What makes this bigger than most, however, is that Impact has gained it against a bundle of diverse services, within an intensive timeframe and across quality and environmental management systems. This was an ambitious challenge and is a clear demonstration of the organisation's commitment to customer satisfaction.”

Impact has also been awarded Committed to Excellence, an entry-level scheme designed to help organisations introduce business excellence. The model is based on organisational best practice across Europe, and is used to identify and prioritise business improvement.

“It was critical in our first year to put in place strong processes and systems,” explains Ian Buckley, Impact's Operations Director. “This achievement was made possible by the commitment shown by our employees. With the approval process complete, we will now push forward to accelerate our growth and continue to meet the increasing expectations of our clients.”

The Impact Partnership is an innovative joint venture partnership between Mouchel Parkman, Agilisys and Rochdale Metropolitan Borough Council that delivers Property, Highways, ICT, Contact Centre and Business services. The best of private and public sector skills creates an ambitious and socially aware organisation with the aims of supporting physical regeneration, creating sustainable jobs, introducing effective technology, and providing exemplary services to all clients. It was established in April 2006.

The ISO 9001 Quality Management System (QMS) is the framework for documenting Impact's quality polity and objectives, procedures, processes and tools. This enables Impact to provide a consistent approach to project management and provides a mechanism for managing risk and for measuring performance to identify improvements.

The ISO 14001 Environmental Management System (EMS) is a documented system containing risk assessment tools, procedures, guidance materials, and monitoring processes that allow Impact to identify and reduce its significant impacts on the environment. The EMS identifies environmental and sustainable risks and opportunities at all levels of the Partnership allowing for continual environmental and sustainable improvements.

Committed to Excellence is designed for organisations that are at the beginning of their journey to Excellence. The emphasis is on creating passion and commitment amongst internal stakeholders in order to generate the necessary momentum to start improvement activities. For applicant organisations, Committed to Excellence provides them a practical and simple way to build on their knowledge and experience of the EFQM Business Excellence Model.