The giving of help to those in need has always existed in some form, whether organised or informal. It could be said it is part of human nature. But the pressures of the fast-paced, competitive way of living and working that have become the norm over the last few decades in the UK are having their effect on even this age-old concept.

“We’re unquestionably entering an era where less and less is taken on trust, even for charities,” said Dame Suzi Leather, chair of the Charity Commission, at a recent Charities Evaluation Services’ conference on quality and the third sector. “Long gone is the idea that services should be gratefully received: ‘be grateful for what you get and don’t question it.’. Deference is gone and trust is a rare commodity.”

The third sector has found itself facing tighter regulation and greater scrutiny concerning the effectiveness of its organisations and how money is spent. Funders and commissioners are increasingly asking for proof of value for money when considering parting with their cash. More and more charities are being created, increasing competition within the sector. These pressures explain why the third sector has embraced the concept of quality.

Martin Coyle, head of quality and development at Action for Advocacy, explains the change in attitude to quality that he’s witnessed. “A lot of the third sector has been deeply committed to quality since its inception, motivated by the desire to bring about change. But the formal tools that demonstrate quality have become massively more important during the last five to ten years. People want to have an external mirror held up to them to check that they’re doing what they’re passionate about as well as possible.”

Between 2002 and 2004, Charities Evaluation Services and the Quality Standards Task Group commissioned a study of the adoption and use of quality systems in the voluntary sector. The study discovered that the main drivers for the adoption of quality systems were pressure from funders, accountability, pre-empting mandatory requirements by the introduction of a system and a need to assure users of service quality. In short, for similar reasons that any business might choose to implement a quality system or framework.

Paul Simpson, technical manager at the Chartered Quality Institute, says: “With regard to the third sector there isn’t a paying customer as such, but non-profit organisations rely on donations from all of us to exist and to do their work. Therefore, as stakeholders, we all need to have confidence that charities are using our resources effectively. This means quality is vitally important in this sector – as much as in manufacturing or service industries.”

Over the last few years, developments have been emerging in the government’s attitude to the third sector. Most notably, the Office of the Third Sector was set up in 2006, highlighting the important role the sector plays in the UK’s economy and society. According to the OTS, there are more than 165,000 registered charities in the UK worth a total of £38bn a year, and this has caught the attention of government.

Government funding for charities has increased, but, as Professor Pete Alcock, director of the Third Sector Research Unit at the University of Birmingham, says: “it comes with all sorts of strings attached. Quality is increasingly at the centre of the new funding environment and organisations need to demonstrate they are providing a quality service. Commissioners expect proof through monitoring and evaluation, because the sector now expects quality as a prerequisite for support.”

With the increasing need to demonstrate the quality of a charity’s services, there is now guidance available from the government. In 1998 the Compact was established, an agreement between the government and the third sector that sets out guidelines for how both can work together. The Charity Commission is the UK’s “independent regulator of charitable activity” and has published the Code of Governance for the Voluntary and Community Sector. Another Charity Commission publication, Hallmarks of an Effective Charity, is a kite mark that charities can aspire to. The commission provides other guidance, including advice on risk management, tax and financial difficulties.

The recession is hitting the third sector just as hard as any other, if not harder. A survey conducted by the commission in March this year discovered that 58% of charities surveyed have experienced a decrease in income and 64% of charities with an income of more than £1m are concerned that future services may be affected.

With these heightened problems, both the government and non-governmental bodies are trying to provide more help for the voluntary sector. Earlier this year the government pledged £42.5m to help volunteers, charities and social enterprises deliver help to those in need and in July Angela Smith, minister for the third sector, announced that the English element of the hardship fund is now open for applications. This will assess and provide grants for eligible charities that are experiencing immediate financial hardship. The Big Lottery Fund has also announced an £88m package to help the sector cope with the effects of the recession.

But charities also need to help themselves to survive this difficult period. The Charity Commission’s survey discovered that only 32% of charities surveyed had taken steps to limit the impact of the recession, with only 14% reducing costs. Dame Suzi Leather says: “Charities are sitting on their laurels. Only 29% of charities that the commission surveyed recently have a complaints procedure in place and while a charity can aspire to providing quality services, I’m not sure it can be achieved without beneficiaries being able to give feedback.”

For any business, quality becomes even more important during a recession and should be part of business as usual. Although best practice should always be a priority, quality is becoming increasingly necessary for survival, particularly for charities when so much relies on attracting funders.

Andrea Allez, performance improvement manager at the National Association for Voluntary and Community Action, says: “There’s always a need for quality but during the recession it comes higher up the agenda. People become more aware of what they’re funding and what their money is going towards. They want to know that the organisations that gain their money are delivering quality services and are operating well inside themselves.”

To take another view, quality can be said to have contributed to one of the third sector’s biggest Challenges: getting funders to part with their money. While quality has grown in importance within charities themselves, partly down to the passion of the people working within the sector to provide as good a service as possible, quality systems have also become more important as an external measure for third parties.

And as more and more quality frameworks are being developed all the time, it has become increasingly tricky to make sure that everyone adheres to the same concept of what quality really is. Commissioners and funders may ask for the stricter monitoring and measuring aspects of quality management, but the voluntary organisations themselves are more focused on measuring the quality of service from the end-users’ point of view. These two focuses can present quite a Challenge to communication between the charity and the commissioner.

Perry Marshall, quality manager at Mind, says: 'Quality means a lot of things and there’s still a lot of work to do to make sure we’re all speaking the same language. Organisations adhere to their own systems, but commissioners ask them to adhere to a separate, off-the-shelf system. Voluntary organisations need to be able to use a system that suits them. We don’t want to drive out what the third sector is all about.'

Standards for the third sector tend to fall into two categories: the off-the-shelf standards that can work for any type of charitable organisation and the tailored frameworks that different parts of the overall sector develop. While well-known quality frameworks such as ISO 9001 and the excellence model are considered as options, not many people who work in a voluntary organisation see them as suitable.

'I have seen a lot of charities roll their eyes at ISO 9001,' says Martin Coyle. 'It’s the sort of thing that’s often mentioned in tenders, but it’s not actually relevant to us.'
Sam Matthews of Charities Evaluation Services, believes that ISO 9001 and the excellence model 'aren’t applicable or completely appropriate for use within quality and community organisations; the language just doesn’t fit'.

The PQASSO Quality Mark is designed specifically for use within the quality sector. This off-the-shelf framework can be applied to any type of voluntary organisation and a new version has recently been published that allows for external accreditation.

Another off-the-shelf system is Quality First, run by Birmingham Voluntary Services Council, and a standard specifically for those working with volunteers is available in Investing in Volunteers.

But many larger charities and umbrella organisations are developing their own, tailored system to more holistically reflect what they do. For example, the National Association for Community and Voluntary Action has developed a quality award for its members that, as Andrea says, 'looks at the difference that the delivery of infrastructure services make.'

Action for Advocacy has also developed its own quality performance mark. Martin explains why. 'Advocacy managers were trying to re-jig their policies to fit in a quality system that wasn’t designed for them – all they really demonstrated was that managers were good at getting through that particular system. When developing the mark, we were aware that unless it captures the real experience, it’s pointless. And it’s a very low-cost framework because we want to make sure that no advocacy organisations have to spend money on quality frameworks.'

With this proliferation of specific standards for each type of organisation within the voluntary sector, it’s hard to see where the future of quality for charities may be headed. Will there ever be one standard that rules them all, or will there be more and more individual standards to represent the huge variety and scope of the third sector? 

'To have one management system that meaningfully investigates all voluntary organisations’ activities is quite tricky,' says Martin. 'For me, this is a signal that there will be other quality marks for separate organisations. PQASSO’s strength is that it gives a shared meaning of quality across quite disparate activities, but the strength of Action for Advocacy’s mark is that it gives very clear indicators to cope with diverse ways of producing one activity.'

But some people believe the new version of PQASSO will cause a step change in the way the third sector approaches quality. Hanneke de Bode, a senior consultant at Euclid in Belgium, says: 'Most of the EU hasn’t heard of things like PQASSO – there’s no concept of third sector organisations as a sector. But most organisations would like some sort of quality standard or regulation, particularly for fundraising. The standard way that a European organisation improves quality starts when something goes wrong and ends with management restructuring. We need to move away from this to use a system like PQASSO to improve organisations.'

And one thing on which everyone associated with the third sector agrees is that there needs to be a shared understanding of quality between those that tender for funding and those that grant it. Commissioners and funders need to understand what constitutes an affective measure for those that offer a helping hand and, in turn, charitable organisations need to realise that using quality practices and processes really can help them to turn their passion to help into a quality service.

Established in 1946, Mind is the UK’s leading mental health charity in England and Wales. In total it has a federated network of more than 180 local Mind associations.

The charity first approached quality practices in 2000, as Perry Marshall, quality manager at Mind, explains. 'Mind started looking at quality initially because of advice from support organisations, such as the National Council for Voluntary Organisations, that quality was going to become an increasing expectation from funders and commissioners. Mind decided it wanted a tailored system specifically for Mind organisations to use, so the decision was taken  to draw on PQASSO for standard requirements and ideas.

'Quality Management in Mind’, the charity’s tailored quality management system, was developed with input from various Mind associations, keeping in mind that we want service users to be involved. For the first few years it was a desktop self-assessment, but after a review in 2004, an external review system was introduced. After reviewing our standards completely, a second edition was launched last year that brings in new legislation and guidance.

'A big recent achievement has been working with the Charity Commission to bring levels 2 and 3 of our standard to meet its Hallmarks of an Effective Charity. This has made a huge difference because our organisations are aspiring to reach higher levels of Quality Management in Mind because of the Charity Commission’s endorsement.'