1. Quality Assurance and Improvement of SDS funded provision
April 2018

2. Format of the presentation
This presentation is designed to:
Familiarise you with your quality assessor team
Enhance your understanding of the SDS quality assurance and improvement processes for your SDS funded provision
Share with you the revised approach to quality for year
Take you through the expectations of self assessment and our formal review processes
Karen
Housekeeping

3. Quality Assurance Team
Julie Gray
Acting Quality Assurance Manager
Christine Young
Quality Assessor Leader
Richard Wilmanski
Quality Assessor
Tracey Storer
Valerie Murray
Nancy Burns
Karen McNutt
Emma-Jade Higginson
Karen

4. Why are we reviewing arrangements?
Feedback from the pilot taken into account
Quality of delivery has become high profile for Scottish Government and Scottish Apprenticeship Advisory Board
Need a focus on the delivery of SDS funded provision rather than any wider business of your organisation
Need the processes to add value to providers (support continuous improvement) as well as provide assurance for SDS
Karen

5. SDS Work-based learning Quality and Improvement Framework
Outcomes and Impact
Delivery of Work-based Learning
Leadership and Quality Culture
Organisations achieve and maintain high levels of service delivery
Work-based Learning provision is designed, delivered and managed to meet the needs of Learners and Employers
Sub-contracted provision is managed effectively
Work-based Learning strategy is based on understanding the needs and expectations of stakeholders, employers and learners
Leaders take ownership for the improvement of quality and performance
Work-based learning provision meets the needs of employers
Planning of resources for effective delivery of work based learning
Work-based learning provision meets the needs of learners
Karen
The NTP Quality team is working to update its quality framework for roll out to NTP providers from April 2018.
We have updated the draft QIs, as shown above, to align more closely with Education Scotland’s MA review framework and to the draft GA Quality framework that is also under development.
The duck egg colour text boxes are the draft Quality Indicators (QIs). The QIs are based upon earlier drafts of Brian’s Quality framework for GA’s, and follow discussions on our respective approaches.
We have streamlined the overall number of QIs, by ensuring that the most important quality themes are covered.
We have tweaked some of the wording of the GA QIs to make requirements more explicit, for example under outcomes and impact the requirement for organisations to meet statutory, equality and funding body requirements is more explicit than “organisations adhere to statutory principles and guidance”.
The blush pink text boxes under Service Delivery and Leadership and Quality Culture are to indicate the high level themes that sit underneath the Qis.
Organisations meet statutory, equality and Funding Body requirements
Partners and stakeholders are managed to improve outcomes for learners and employers

6. NTP Quality Assurance and Improvement Framework
22 Themes
13 Self Assessment questions
9 Quality Indicators
3 Standards
Outcomes and Impact
Delivery of Work Based Learning
Leadership and Quality Culture
Karen
Sitting beneath the QS’s and QIs are SA questions and themes
The SA Questions are designed to prompt a critical review of what you do, what works, want needs to improve.
The themes ensure that all the key SDS contract requirements (inc ROPC Part B MA) are incorporated.

7. Our arrangements for monitoring and reviewing quality of delivery
Self Assessment (SA) and Quality Action Plan (QAP)- all due in by 30th April 2018.
Revised approach to Self Assessment
Documentation changed- see later detail
MA providers- no requirement to complete RoPC Part B- captured as part of self assessment- therefore need full responses in the Self Assessment
Formal review visits will be carried out on a risk basis
Scoring using RADAR methodology – covered later
Ongoing monitoring of all Providers by Skills Investment Advisors
Karen

8. Our ask and expectations
We need assurance that our contracted providers are:
Meeting quality requirements in delivery and assessment
Demonstrating commitment to improvement in the delivery and assessment of SDS funded provision
Main ask is that you follow the Self assessment and action planning guidance which we are giving.
Demonstrate what you are doing in all areas and evaluate its effectiveness (self assessment) to create a quality action plan
You need to meet the deadlines for submission- sanctions possible (hold on starts and possibly payments until matter resolved)
Utilise the action plan to support your own improvement actions (will be monitored by SIAs)
Karen

9. Our Offer
Support through the SA and action planning process – events; webinar sessions and with quality assessors available us
Good/effective practice events for providers throughout the year
Potential for good practice exemplar bank?
Development of a continuous improvement module on self assessment/continuous improvement processes

10. Effective self assessment
Effective self assessment regarding planning and delivery of training happens where the provider has completed the process using evidence from 4 main lenses:
That of yourselves- how well do you think you have performed and what “hard” evidence such as starts and achievement provides
That of the learners perceptions
That of the employer’s perceptions
That which is set out in best practice by work-based training academia(“the literature”)
Ourselves
Employers
Learners
Accepted best practice
Karen
The process by which a provider undertakes self evaluation is very important. It should be a team effort where hard evidence is considered (what results are we getting?) and qualitative evidence is considered (what do others think of our service?). This should be used to inform improvement
One Person locking themselves in a room to do this is not appropriate- remember that a lot of what we are looking at is subjective to the individual's opinion.
In general, our providers do not engage well with the self assessment process. They often write non-evaluative statements which just describe how they do things rather than considering how effective that process is- i.e. They consider self assessment as a compliance ask for SDS rather than a tool for continuous improvement...we therefore need to improve our ask of them to convince them that this is a n approach that is useful to their business future from an excellence perspective and not just from a compliance perspective

11. Self Assessment Provider Video
Please click on the link below to view Provider video on the benefits of Self Assessment
Self Assessment Provider Video
Julie / Karen
Need to agree where best place is to show – hard to know until we see it!

12. How we score quality of SDS funded provision
Delivery of work-based learning 35%
Leadership and quality culture 15%
Outcomes and Impact 50%
Julie
Use this slide to explain how SDS scores quality and weighting for each standard.
In preparation for doing your own self assessment it may help if I explain how SDS scores the quality of your provision.
As Karen said, discerning what is good quality is subjective and our quality assessors need to take on board the range of evidence that is presented to them during the QA visit.
We use EFQM’s RADAR scoring model to give structure and a level of objectivity to a subjective subject.
Explain RADAR, for a high score providers need to demonstrate that they are following the Results, Plan, do, review, improve cycle.
Outcomes and Impact i.e. Results - is an area where a lot of providers fall down because they do not do any/enough analysis of their performance to know:
About the trends – are trends positive or good performance is sustained;
Are your SDS targets achieved?
How do you compare to other providers?
How confident are you that your performance is sustainable?
Impact – what do we mean by Impact?
the impact of your delivery is judged not just by the outcomes you achieve but also the perception of your learners, employers, SDS and awarding bodies – satisfaction/perceptions what do they think about your delivery? How well has you delivery met their needs and expectations? What evidence do you have?
You need to show this in your self assessment.
Evidence comes in a number of ways but starts with your self assessment. If you can demonstrate through your self assessment that you look critically at all aspects of your delivery, you know what you do well and WHY and you can identify what you could do better, this is a good indicator to SDS that you are committed to improvement and that you will take action to improve your delivery.

13. Self assessment (SA) guidance
Helps you prepare for and conduct your self assessment and quality action plan
Universal – relevant to MA and EF programme delivery
We have suggested points for you to consider with exemplars to illustrate the type of information you should be reviewing
Not intended to be prescriptive or exhaustive – you may have other areas of relevance - intended to be used as prompts with your staff, employers, learners, partners, etc.
Simple RAG rating system so you can prioritise your areas for improvement and actions
Guidance will be available within the SA and Quality Action Plan workbook for ease of reference
Julie
We will also provide an exemplar of a completed SA and QAP.

14. Extract from Outcomes and Impact
How successful are you in meeting and exceeding the requirements of SDS and Awarding Bodies?
Theme: SDS equality requirements - you should consider:
Number, as a percentage of your staff undertaking training in equality and diversity, give examples of training such as unconscious bias.
Results and impact of positive action you have taken, for example improved numbers of learners starting programmes from equality groups.
Include the results of your subcontractors if you use them.
Julie
Case study exercise
Use the guidance to help you in deciding what information/evidence you should be reporting in your SA.

15. Extract from Outcomes and Impact
How successful are you in meeting and exceeding the requirements of SDS and awarding bodies?
Theme: Awarding body requirements – you should consider:
Evidence of successful external verifier reports per year, i.e. the number of fully compliant versus required actions
Show how you have implemented any recommendations from these reports
How do you know your sub-contractors are compliant with awarding bodies?
Julie

16. Extract from Delivery of work-based learning
Theme: Resources
Points to consider:
How appropriate and accessible are your delivery environments?
Do learners have access to up-to-date equipment? Do you make adaptations to support learners with additional support needs?
How fit for purpose are your learning materials?
For example do you update materials based on changes to frameworks or from learner feedback?
Julie

17. Tips for writing your Self Assessment Examples of evaluative statements
Questionnaires are in place
So what?
Questionnaires are issued to all learners on completion of the induction process. Feedback is evaluated, and we use “the you said, we did” method so our learners know we value their feedback and can see how they have helped to improve the quality of our induction to the benefit of other learners.
We work with other organisations
So what?
We work with external organisations such as Dyslexia Scotland to provide appropriate individualised support to learners with Dyslexia, and this support helps these learners to remain on the programme and complete their qualification.

18. SMART Action Planning Specific Measurable Achievable Relevant
Is a specific area for improvement clearly defined?
Who will be involved?
Specific
How will you know that you are making progress towards your improvements?
Measurable
Are the results that you expect realistic given the time and resources available?
Achievable
Are the results that you expect relevant to your business and the wider landscape?
Relevant
Have you been specific about when you expect the results to be achieved?
Have you defined a start and end date?
Time-bound QA
Introduce the slide as this is something that they are going to be asked to do in the next section
Acknowledge that they will probably have seen this before but there is no harm in refreshing
Go through the slide