The European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) Excellence Model ® is a quality improvement tool. It is used by organisations in all sectors that is, the public, private and voluntary sector to improve the quality of services provided to customers, clients and users. There are a number of quality systems available to all sectors such as ISO 9001, Investors in People etc. however the excellence Model was developed to provide a systematic framework that covers everything that an organisation does and to make links between people, processes, customers and the results achieved.

The Excellence model differs from other ‘all sector' systems because it is a self assessment tool focusing on the organisation identifying for it what improvement is required. It therefore adopts a non prescriptive style and suggests areas to look at and provides ideas for improvement

The excellence differs from all quality systems (including those specifically devised for the VCS e.g. PQASSO and VISIBLE) that are based on a series of standards because it asks the organisation to challenge how good they are and how good their results are. It is therefore best suited to ‘mature' organisations that are clear upon their baseline standards and know what is actually necessary to run a high performing organisation. It's not unusual for an organisation to have effectively implemented a quality system based on standards before moving onto EFQM.

It is a quality system that is very well received by its users (demonstrated by routine surveys) as a means to achieving improvement in its services.

The full model and guidance can be obtained from the British Quality Foundation, 32-34 Great Peter Street, London, SW1P 2QX, tel. 020 7654 5000 http://www.bqf.org.uk/

The Quality and Governance Coordinator at VAC recently attended a seminar on this model to see the PowerPoint slides from this event click here