Community
agencies are increasingly embracing a quality management approach in the design
and delivery of their services. They are finding that one of the most beneficial
characteristics of a quality management system is that it provides a structured
approach to data analysis and continuous improvement. Managing for quality
focuses attention on critical analysis and systems thinking to identify process
weaknesses and failures in order to improve and strengthen the system. The
principle governing this activity is gaining an understanding of cause and
effect. By focusing on process, not people, it negates the “blame game”. When
applying a quality management approach, managers learn to investigate the
reason for process failures, and respond by taking corrective and preventive
actions to ensure the same problem does not recur in the future.
Over recent
years the mandated standards requirements for funded agencies in the non-profit
sector have included the need to have an effective quality management system in
place, as part of their customer assurance of quality and accountability for
expenditure of public funds. It is ironic that government departments demanding
this commitment by the agencies they fund have no such requirements in place
for themselves.
They too expend funds from the public purse and therefore could
be expected to be subject to the same moral imperatives for public
accountability. Instead, most recently we have seen from politicians and public
servants a focus on allocating blame for their own system failures – finding a
scapegoat - rather than a public assurance of system improvements that will
prevent the same problems recurring in the future. How is it possible for
critical system failures like fraudulent activity by employees and poor performance
by contracted suppliers to recur, if appropriate corrective and preventive strategies
have been applied? Perhaps it is time government departments and agencies
demanded of themselves the obligations they impose on the agencies they fund – a
quality management system that is regularly audited by independent third
parties for its effectiveness!
