PQASSO (Practical Quality Assurance System for Small Organisations) is a straightforward, user-friendly quality assurance system intended to help you run your organisation more effectively and efficiently. It offers a flexible approach to quality which allows your organisation to work at its own pace. It helps you to take a systematic look at what you do, identify areas where you are doing well and not so well, and decide exactly where improvements are needed. It helps you to plan, budget and allocate the resources for making these improvements over a realistic time period.

PQASSO is suitable for small, medium or large voluntary and community organisations, or for project teams in very large organisations. Organisations working in all areas – for example, health, social care, the environment or animal welfare – can use PQASSO. It can also be used by self-help organisations, and campaigning and research organisations.

PQASSO:

PQASSO covers 12 quality standards and promotes continuous improvement through self assessment. The 12 quality standards are:

1. Planning for quality
2. Governance
3. Management
4. User-centred service
5. Staff and volunteers
6. Training and development
7. Managing money
8. Managing resources
9. Managing activities
10. Networking and partnership
11. Monitoring and evaluation
12. Results.