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Standards and Performance Pathways

There are currently more than 50 sets of significant quality service standards for the community services sector. Under current arrangements, funded organisations are required to separately complete and provide compliance reports on each of their service standards for each source of government funding they receive. …read more

For a significant number of organisations this can mean preparing more than 6 separate performance reports and for some, over 20. The inefficiencies in the current arrangements are costing many organisations significant amounts of funds and unnecessary losses in staff time that could be redirected to service delivery. Additionally, a significant proportion of organisations are also required to embark on formal standards accreditation and licensing processes. BNG NGO Services Online undertook a national survey on the cost of standards compliance ...read more 
Standards and Performance Pathways (SPP)
Standards and Performance Pathways provides a unique and easy to use online service that tackles and solves the problem of multiple quality standards requirements and compliance reporting.
It is an integrated online system for the completion of self assessments, compliance activities related to service and quality standards.
The SPP has been specifically designed for the community services sector in Australia and provides you with:
  • an electronic workbook containing online guided assessments against the criteria for all components of relevant Australian community services and health standards
  • automatically generated responses to assessment results describing action that is required to complete compliance of any component of a standard
  • guided activities, tools and resourceslinked to these actions that support the user to complete the action and reach compliance
  • an electronic template which documents the actions, and then resources and enables the user to enter information for a quality improvement work plan
  • an ‘evidence pack’ where pre-existing or newly completed documents can be loaded from the user’s system and downloaded to provide evidence of compliance for external assessors
  • an ongoing progress display which shows progress in terms of completion and compliance levels - users can track their own progress by both by percentage of compliance and by visual graphs.
  • cross referencing with all other core sets of standards so that completion of one set of standards will automatically register with items in other sets of standards - users can complete multiple sets of standards by completing a single set
SPP addresses the time consuming and labour intensive aspects of quality service standards compliance, and the duplication of effort required by NGOs with multiple government funding sources subject to multiple sets of quality standards.
Where NGOs have a single set of standards, SPP provides a simple to use online interactive tool, guiding and resourcing organisations through this process, tracking progress and collating evidence for compliance reporting. SPP provides an effective remedy to cumbersome paper based systems and manuals.
The Standards and Performance Pathways is a unique product and carries an Australian Patent.
BENEFITS and APPLICATIONS 
For NGOs The SPP provides a simple, guided way to complete the processes required to meet industry and funding body quality service standards. It also supports and resources the implementation of good practice, improving organisational capacity and more accurately identify areas of risk and organisational vulnerability....read more
For funding or accrediting agencies The SPP provides the capacity to collect service standards assessment reports electronically, access evidence easily for compliance or quality checking and track progress at a number of levels. This provides significant efficiencies compared with a paper based system and handling hard copy material. SPP provides assessors with direct access to evidence in a manageable form, improving capacity to more accurately assess compliance and quality of practice and to identify areas of risk and organisational vulnerability. Global reporting enables the targeting of resources to areas of high risk and low compliance to achieve consistent and safe service quality across the sector....read more

For large multi-purpose organisations The SPP can be tailored to provide an in-house quality assurance platform and integrated system for organisational compliance, information and documentation management, building capability and improving performance.
For external assessors or auditors requiring on site assessments or licensing accreditation, the SPP provides a system for electronic on site entry, ensures assessors are working from a consistent set of assessment criteria and enables assessors to provide compliance or rectification reports with resources that can assist the organisation to implement required improvements.
Electronic reports can be generated on the extent of completion and compliance for any group of users, enabling collated reporting by industry sub groups.

Tracks industry performance against benchmarks An inbuilt data collection system also collects data to determine benchmarks, enabling users to view themselves against industry benchmarks and industry bodies to track industry performance against benchmarks.

PORTALS

A portal is a tailored version of the Standards and Performance Pathways for NGOs who are part of, or funded by a lead agency.
Features of tailored portals include:
  • branding and display of client/s logo
  • tailored standards menu that links to an underlying menu of all standards carried by the SPP
  • service specific resources and links that can be loaded onto a client’s portal to complement the SPP resources and tools
  • progress reports and evidence packs to be directly submitted to the lead agency
  • integration of progress and compliance data with existing lead agency monitoring systems or data bases
  • internal benchmarking
  • Client Administration Site (CAS) or ‘viewing platform'
Community Legal Centres across the country use SPP and the National Association of Community Legal Centres (NACLC) has its own SPP portal for their national accreditation scheme which has been operating since late 2010.
Quality Management Services (QMS) are the first accrediting body to use a SPP portal and organisations who are engaged in a QIC or Service Excellence Program accreditation process will be able to use the SPP directly through QMS.
ACCESS

Access is by organisational subscription to the public site or via a specialist portal, where the scope and content of assessment materials, compliance resources, and site 'look' have been tailored to meet the needs of a particular group.

Subscription rates are scaled to the income of organisations.

Attractive dicounts are offered for:

  • Current MSO subscriber service users
  • Packages of combined MSO subscriber services with Standards and Performance Pathways
  • 3 year subscription packages to the SPP…read more
WHAT NGOS SAY ABOUT US…read more
STANDARDS COVERAGE
The SPP carries 30 sets of standards common to community services and health NGOs. These include the generic State standards for those States which have them and a number of service specific sets. There are a further 14 sets of standards to be added over the first half of 2012. These include the new 'single standards' for community services in Queensland and Victoria. To see what’s already on the SPP and the schedule for new standards…read more