The UK Volunteering Forum awards the Investing in Volunteers standard and oversees the quality assurance process.
Flow chart (PDF) explaining the quality assurance process.
1. Assessor recruitment, training and ongoing support
Assessors are chosen for their experience of assessment and their knowledge of volunteer management. They have all undergone an intensive training course in assessment.
All potential assessors will be recruited within an equal opportunities policy, with reference to a person specification and role description
Regular assessor meetings are held to ensure good practice development. These will include training, updates, sharing of good practice and resolution of questions/problems
Assessors will be supported by a lead assessor/country co-ordinator. The lead assessor/country co-ordinator will monitor assessment decisions by observing practice, giving feedback and offering one-to-one coaching.
2. Assessment Decisions
Following completion of the agreed assessment activity, the assessor can make one of three decisions
- Met recommendation to UK Investing in Volunteers Quality Assurance Panel for a period of 3 years
- Not Met not award the standard for reasons included in the report
- Will Meet if specific conditions are fulfilled. These conditions will have to be fulfilled within a specific timescale. When fulfilled, the assessor will confirm the organisation has Met the standard.
If the organisation does not fulfil the conditions within a given period, they will be deemed to have Not Met the standard.
3. Appeals Process
In the event that an organisation feels that they have received an unfair decision, they may appeal.
- In the first instance this is to the Lead Assessor/Country Co-ordinator.
- If it is not resolved, then a further appeal may be made to the UK Investing in Volunteers Quality Assurance panel. Its decision is final.
4. Customer Service Standards
Investing in Volunteers wants to deliver an excellent service. Please tell us what we are doing right or wrong, or suggest improvements to the service we offer. Contact us using the details on the Contact Us page.
We will aim to meet the following response times. We will:
- respond within 5 working days to e-mail enquiries.
- reply to all letters within 5 working days.
- once you have registered for Investing in Volunteers, we will contact you to discuss pricing and timing arrangements. We will assign you a quality approved assessor and write to you with the date on which they will contact you.
- once you have sent you self-assessment checklist to your assessor, you will receive verbal feedback within 10 working days and written feedback within 15 working days
- following the assessment visit, you will receive verbal feedback within 3 days of the visit. This will inform you whether you meet the standard or will meet it when specific conditions have been fulfilled.
- you will receive a final report within ten working days of this assessment visit.
5. Our credentials
The UK Volunteering Forum awards the Standard and monitors its quality.
The UK Volunteering Forum (UKVF) brings together the national volunteering development agencies of the four countries in the UK:
Links
UK Volunteering Forum (UKVF)
website www.ukvf.org
UK Investing in Volunteers Quality Assurance Panel comprises of countrywide level assessors / co-ordinators plus expert practitioners in the field of volunteer management.
6. Monitoring and Evaluation
The UKVF will monitor our quality assurance processes and impact evaluation took place in 2006.
