Plan your submission at the time and pace which suits you, but keep the assessors in touch with your progress. Most organisations can complete the process within 3 months.

The first step is to arrange an initial meeting with your assessors. At this meeting you will discuss and agree a draft timetable for the assessment. You need to give yourself enough time to compile and complete the portfolio and for the assessors to meet and make the assessment. You may want to schedule an interim meeting with your assessment team to discuss progress in compiling the portfolio and any difficulties.

Some services may already work to standards that cover parts (or all) of the FRF Quality Standards. To avoid duplication of work the Fife Rights Forum has developed a passporting system. For services working to other recognised standards an independent verifier will:

a) Undertake an initial reading of both standards to assess any differences.

b) Make at least one visit to the service to prepare (with the service) a "note of agreement" on assessment. The assessors assigned to the service will be notified of any note of agreement.

c) The note of agreement will provide the basis for any further assessment.

For services working to comprehensive standards, the note of agreement could recommend an immediate award of the FRF Quality Mark without further assessment.

A passporting agreement will normally be in place by the time the assessment is due to begin.

The Fife Rights Forum Quality Standards Scheme is organised using three assessment methods.

The first method used is self assessment. A service assesses themselves against the 13 standards drawing together a portfolio of evidence that supports that self assessment.

The second method is peer assessment. Two assessors from external agencies look at self assessment of the service, examine the supporting evidence and assess the service portfolio against the 13 standards. The assessors pass their assessment to the Board of Certification who review the assessment and recommend the award.

The third method is external verification. Fife Rights Forum employ an independent external verifier to examine a sample of the assessments and verify that the assessments are carried out consistently across all the assessment teams.

The Fife Rights Forum Quality Standards are divided into 4 parts:

Part 1: Organisational Development
Part 2: Accountability
Part 3: Best practice casework
Part 4: Child protection and rights

There are thirteen standards and each standard has three levels.

All services who want to display the Fife Rights Forum Quality Standard Logo should reach at least level 2 in Parts 1-3 for all relevant Quality Standards.

The Logo will not be awarded until a service reaches level 2.

In Part 4 (Child protection and rights) all services must reach level 1 in both standards.
Services whose primary focus of work involves children or young people must reach level 2 in both standards 12 & 13.

Each service is required to develop a portfolio of evidence that supports the self assessment, the portfolio is compiled on QSATS (the Quality Standards Application Tracking Scheme).

QSATS is an online database that allows the service and assessors to share information related to their assessment. Each service can only view their own information and each team of assessors will only be able to view information relating to the service they are assessing.

Training on QSATS will be given to assessors and 1 or 2 representatives from each service being assessed.

The portfolio of evidence managed on QSATS should be a list of documents that supports your self assessment. These documents could be management committee minutes, excerpts from service handbooks, leaflets, complaint forms etc. Each document will be cross referenced against at least one standard, although a single piece of evidence can be used many times.

The QSAT system accepts MS word, Excel and PDF documents as well as scanned images.

All services can apply for an exemption from any particular Quality Standard. Exemptions will be granted if the organisation can demonstrate (to the satisfaction of the assessors) that a particular standard is not relevant.

Given the importance of child protection, exemptions will not be available for the child protection element of Section 4 (Part IV). All services must reach level 1 in Child protection (to achieve an overall level 2 or 3 award). Services whose primary focus of work involves young people will be required to reach level 2 in both elements of Section 4 (Part IV).

When a service is satisfied that they have provided enough evidence for their assessment and indicated which level of award they are applying for, they use the QSAT system to notify the assessment team that they are ready to be assessed.

The assessors will look at the portfolio and assess the evidence. If the assessors require more evidence or clarification on an issue they may ask for a further meeting with the service contact.

The assessors will make sure that each of the standards have the required supporting evidence and will examine all of the standards closely. The assessment team will say whether they agree with the self assessment and make their recommendation to the Board of Certification.

If a service meets most of the requirements of a standard but does not fully meet the standard, an assessor can issue a compliance to the agency. A compliance requires that the service meets and evidences a particular condition within a set period of time. A service cannot apply for a compliance. They can only be recommended by the assessors.

The rationale behind a compliance is that a service should not fail to receive a level two or level three award provided they can meet and evidence the requirements of the standards within a reasonable period of time e.g. 6 months. Assessors should not issue more than a few compliances.

Any compliances should be noted on the QSAT system.

To ensure consistency across the assessment/verification process the Fife Rights Forum has introduced a process of external verification for the standards. The external verifier will not be a member of any agency within the Fife Rights Forum. It will be their duty to independently verify the maintenance of standards of assessment and equality of assessment. The external verification will be completed on a sampling basis and can be carried out on any part of the assessment process.

The external verifier may request copies of assessment reports and shall be entitled to attend assessment visits.

The external verifier will report to the Quality Standards Sub Group and will produce an annual written report which shall include a report on verification activity and may include recommendations for process improvements.

In the event of a conflict between the Quality Standards Sub Group and the external verifier, the external verifier has the right of appeal to an independent person nominated by Fife Council (Policy and Organisational Support). Any ruling made by the independent person will be binding to both sides.

Every service applying for the Fife Rights Forum Quality Standards logo will have the right to appeal against the decision of the peer assessors.

Firstly, three members of the Quality Standards Sub-Group will visit the service that applied for the logo, to review their portfolio of evidence and to hear their appeal. They will then give their decision.

If the service still disagrees with the process or the outcome after the first appeal, they can make a second appeal to a panel of five arbiters who are members of Fife Rights Forum. These five arbiters will not include any of the original assessors or the Sub-Group appeal committee nor any paid or unpaid staff from their services.

The decision of this arbiters' panel is based on the original portfolio of evidence and written and verbal statements from the applicants, and it is final.