Posted By David P. Johnson I have just taken up post as a "Management Adviser" for a local charity (they use a generic title because they want me to get them up to speed with most things!), and I wanted to get some advise on the following from others working in the voluntary/community sector: At the moment, the only management system in place (formal or otherwise) is PQASSO (Practical Quality Assurance System for Small Organisations). I am looking to implement 9001:2000, alongside 14001, 18001 and BS7799 as an integrated management approach over the next 18 months. In principal, I have the support of the Trustees/Senior Management Team to do so, however they have one major concern - funding. Are any of you aware of ways of keeping the costs of this down - particularly with the assessment and verification, which seems a tad extortionate for charitable trust budgets. Any advice/support whatsoever would be greatly appreciated. David

Posted By J Knight Ah well, Ron, depends what they do, but very often Charities have commercial or LA partners, and they want to see everything accredited on account of vicarious liability etc; we are certainly subject to pressure from our partners and the list of certificates we need to produce grows ever longer, though admittedly we are a reasonably large national charity rather than a small local one. Dunno how you do all this on the cheap, but if they're only a small concern then systmes can be simple and multi-functional, which saves costs, John

Posted By David P. Johnson It's a local charity - but that by no means suggests it's a small one. We need to gain more formal accreditation in any case because we handle a large proportion of public funds, and HM Government is planning to empower the voluntary sector even further in the delivery of services. I just want to get it done early, to save time/rushing later on. Thanks for the advice/support.