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June 2001
Raising the Nation's
Trading Standards
Quality management consultancy and software
supplier, Qualsys, has entered into a partnership with award-winning Halton
Borough Council to offer over 200 local governments Trading Standards and
Consumer Protection
offices an easy way to maintain an ISO 9001 compliant quality system.
Under the agreement, Halton Borough Council will preload a generic set of
quality documentation, including templates and procedures, originally designed
to support its own ISO9001 certification onto Qualsys' intranet-based EQMS
software, which is designed to support quality and standards management
(including by controlling and distributing quality procedures, policy
directives, corporate standards and forms).
The 'package' provides authorities offers local authorities without ISO 9001 a
fast track towards accreditation, and will help ISO-accredited authorities to
enhance and maintain existing systems by adopting the document structure
developed over time by the Halton Service. Once loaded, documentation can be
seen by anyone with access to the software, considerably reducing the risk of
using out of date information and obviating the need for expensive,
time-consuming photocopies. The software incorporates warnings when
material is updated or due for updating and amends will automatically be visible
to all users.
John Downes, Manager of Consumer Protection for Halton Borough Council, said:
"It's a logical step for us to offer our work to other local government
departments. We have to maintain information to the highest possible
standards at Halton, and this initiative reduces pointless duplication of
effort. It's also one of those situations where everyone seems to win:
Halton gets the prestige and commission from its involvement, Qualsys is offered
a new way to sell EQMS and the purchaser gets a fast track to quality
accreditation. It's such a simple, workable idea that I'm surprised no-one
has though of it before."
Halton is planning to develop an integrated Quality Management System that will
lead to registration against Environmental and Health & Safety standards as
well as Quality standards. The complete document set will ultimately be
available with EQMS software.
Halton Borough Council is no stranger to quality initiatives: in addition to ISO
9001 accreditation, the Council has IIP (Investors in People) accreditation.
Halton has received a Government Charter Mark award for its Registration Service
(which is also managed by the Consumer Protection Manager) and the work to
streamline the planning process for businesses made the Borough Council one of
only 29 authorities in the country to receive Beacon status last year - a
prestigious award given to Councils who have been judged to be the best in a
particular service and have demonstrated good performance overall.
Robert Oakley, commercial director, Qualsys said: "The time and efficiency
savings made by using EQMS are magnified by re-using the Halton information.
The Stop Now orders, which came into force at the beginning of June, give
Trading Standards bodies extra power to protect consumers. We believe that
this software will allow organisations to focus on getting on with the real
business of protecting consumers rather than administration."
For authorities with existing quality management systems, the document set is
available as a stand-alone product. Licenses for the EQMS software
inclusive of the Halton document set start from £2,500.
For information
about Qualsys contact Robert Oakley on +44 (0)114 282 3338.
Email robert.oakley@qualsys.co.uk
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