Policy review by the Customer Voices Panel

In October, the new Professionalisation, Competence and Conduct Standard comes into force. The work we've shared on this page so far supports the Competence and Conduct aspect of the Standard which is about embedding the right culture, behaviours and continuous professional development across the organisation.

The Professionalisation aspect of the Standard is about ensuring people in certain roles have specific skills and qualifications. We have 3 years to fully meet this aspect of the Standard.

To prepare for the new Standard coming in, we've developed an overarching policy to make sure we have oversight of both aspects of the Standard in one place.

Earlier this week, Megan Henderson, Head of Corporate Services, took the Policy to the Customer Voices Panel for review and feedback. You can read the presentation Megan gave to the Customer Voices Panel here.

Following the presentation, Megan opened the session up for a Q&A. In summary, the Panel asked:

Q. Have the cost implications associated with the Professionalisation aspect impacted services to customers?

A. While the Professionalisation aspect of the Standard has increased costs, we've tried to use the budget we already have to deliver the study requirements. This means we've put some new training requests on hold if they aren't a requirement under the Professionalisation aspect.

Q. Will everything be in place for the new Standard coming in?

A. Yes. Over the 2 years, we've been working in the background to get everything ready.

Q. What constitutes consultation with customers and what has happened so far?

A. To help us develop our work around the new Standard, we've:

• run a Time to Talk session about the Competence and Conduct apect of the Standard (Time to Talk was a monthly online session where a colleague led a presentation on a particular topic and customers could share real-time feedback)
• taken relevant updates and documents to the Customer Voices Panel for review and comment
• created this page on Your Voice to keep customers updated and invite feedback
• asked for direct feedback from customers about our Colleague Circle and behaviours when they phoned our Contact Centre

The Panel added that they were pleased to see what we'd put in place to support the Standard and how thoroughly we'd responded to it.