Chapter 6 – Quality Assurance Standards
Introduction –Quality Assurance
Standards
1. The Quality Assurance Standards aims to provide managers/observers with the tools to
help make sure that staff conduct their business as effectively and efficiently as possible and
where this isn’t the case, help to identify where further training and support is needed. The
Quality Assurance Standards are designed to compliment the existing appraisal process, but
not to replace it.
2. The Quality Assurance Standards are only one of a variety of performance management
tools and should be used in conjunction with the others available to you to assess team and
individual performance.
Work Coach Team Leaders and the Quality
Assurance Standards
3. As a Work Coach Team Leader, you are responsible for:
conducting Quality Assurance Standards observations on each of your work coaches
and Disability Employment Advisers (DEAs) as per the guidance in the work coach Quality
Assurance Standards guidance and Work Focused Interview (WFI) Process and Supporting
Tools for work coaches and Work Coach Team Leaders guidance;
ensuring at least one Customer Experience Quality Assurance Standards observation
is conducted per work coach per quarter as per the Customer Experience Quality Assurance
Standards guidance;
provide effective feedback from Quality Assurance Standards observations to
individuals and
coaching and developing your work coaches to deliver effective claimant focused
interviews and identify ongoing professional development needs.
4. The Quality Assurance Standards for work coaches helps to make sure our work coach
services are effective, efficient and of consistently high quality. It is a framework for regularly
reviewing work coach functions that allows us to recognise good perform ance, making
improvements where necessary.
Observations
5. 80% of your time will be spent with your work coaches and Disability Employment Advisers
(DEAs), observing, coaching, mentoring, monitoring, checking and giving one to one feedback
to enable you to manage their performance and development.
6. Observing your work coaches and DEAs as they conduct interviews will be vital in helping
you to support the ongoing development of your work coach team. They will help you to
assess your work coaches through the decisions they make during interviews with claimants,
ensuring interviews are of a consistently high quality and that the team understands the
complex array of provision available to support their claimants into work.
Informal observations
7. The most common form of observation is to sit with work coaches and DEAs while they
conduct interviews. However, more informal observation whilst sitting out on the section can
also be extremely valuable. This will be a useful way for you to see the way the team inte racts
with others, both within the team and with other teams and claimants.
8. Observations can and should happen over and above the minimum required in the Quality
Assurance Standards process.
Responsibility
9. It is your responsibility to undertake the Quality Assurance Standards observation process
for the work coaches and it must not be delegated
Frequency
10. As a minimum, one Quality Assurance Standards observation per work coach/DEA per
month should be conducted. After this, the number of observations will vary according to the
skill and experience of the individual work coach. Inexperienced work coaches and DEAs and
those with clear developmental needs will need more frequent observation.
11. Informal observations of work coach/DEA interviews are as important as the formal
Quality Assurance Standards observations. A great deal can be learnt through informal
observations, for example team interaction and relationships between the work coach team
and other teams within the jobcentre.
12. Work Coach Team Leaders may wish to use observations of more experience work
coaches as a way of identifying and sharing good practice.
Conducting Quality Assurance Standards
13. A claimant has the right to refuse permission for their interview to be observed. Work
coaches should gain the agreement of the claimant prior to the Quality Assurance Standards
observation beginning. It is therefore vital that work coaches fully understand the purpose of
the Quality Assurance Standards to allay any reservations the claimant may have about their
interview being observed.
14. The Quality Assurance Standards are designed as a flexible tool to support work
coach/DEA performance and should be used in a way that takes account of the individual
needs of each work coach/DEA. Work Coach Team Leaders should select the areas of the
Quality Assurance Standards they want to focus on and discuss it with the work coach/DEA
prior to the interview.
Feedback
15. Giving feedback is an important part of your work coach’s/DEA’s ongoing development
and must be given following observations. Giving objective feedback will help both you and
your work coaches/DEAs identify development needs.
16. Following observation, feedback should be given to your work coach/DEA within five or
ten minutes of the interview ending, allowing time for the work coach and the observer to
reflect on the interview.
17. A good practice guide for giving feedback after observing interviews (link is external) has
been developed and will help you to ensure your feedback is objective and structured.
18. The Civil Service Learning site also has a number of learning products, and hints and tips
for giving and receiving feedback.
Further information
19. Full details and information on the work coach Quality Assurance Standards observation
and feedback process can be found in the work coach Quality Assurance Standards guidance
and Work Focused Interview (WFI) Process and Supporting Tools for work coaches and Work
Coach Team Leaders guidance.
Customer Experience Quality Assurance Standards
20. All managers will undertake the Customer Experience Quality Assurance Standards
observation (link is external), which provides a structured framework specifically for the
measurement of the standards of customer service provided. It aims to be a useful tool for
managers to monitor the delivery of customer service and enables Work Coach Team
Leaders and Jobcentre Customer Service Managers to:
record examples of customer service;
note formal and informal customer feedback;
observe face to face meetings and interviews with claimants;
identify strengths and areas for improvements;
provide structured feedback to individuals; and
enable appropriate support and learning opportunities to be offered.
21. This Customer Experience Quality Assurance Standards apply to anyone whose role
involves dealing with Jobcentre Plus claimants on the telephone, face to face and through
written correspondence.