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What is the Training Quality Standard?
The Training Quality Standard is a framework and an assessment and certification process which recognises and celebrates the best organisations delivering training and development solutions to employers.  For more details click here

What is the purpose of the Training Quality Standard?
The aims of the Training Quality Standard are to create an assessment framework and process through which the best organisations providing and delivering training and development solutions to employers can be recognised and marked out.

To this end the Standard assesses and, where appropriate, certificates organisations for their:

  • responsiveness to employers,
  • excellence in delivering training
  • commitment to continuous improvement, and
  • specialisation around industry sectors.

The Learning and Skills Council has invested in the development of the Training Quality Standard (formerly the new standard) to create a credible national mark which employers can follow to access responsive and relevant training and development provision.  In doing so, it is expected that the Training Quality Standard will stimulate significant improvements in the quality of training and development provision, so that it delivers greater impact for employers, greater value for the taxpayer, and recognition for those delivering to a high standard.

What impact will the Standard have?
The Training Quality Standard has the potential to make an impact through:
     

  • Increasing confidence in purchasing training. 36% of employers do not buy external training provision.  Of those that do, 34% find it 'sometimes', 'often' or 'very' difficult to source a good training provider.  In either case, the creation of a rigorously certificated, national badge has the potential to raise confidence - employers who train say that a successful Standard will encourage them to arrange more training overall, especially with external provision.
  • Cut employers' costs of sourcing and taking delivery of training. Employers spend an estimated £5,1bn in managing training activity.  Creation of a rigorously certificated, national badge has the potential to reduce the cost involved in identifying a quality provider, and to eliminate confusion over respective roles.  Employers say that a successful Standard would be highly likely to 'save time and money in making decisions'.
  • Increasing the return-on-investment of buying training provision. The longer term gain will be through increasing the quality of training providers' delivery.  By recognising the best provision we have, and providing a framework that all providers can use to benchmark and develop against, the Training Quality Standard can transform quality on the supply-side.


The Training Quality Standard has been tested through survey research to ensure that the approach is recognised as valuable by employers.  Once the concept has been explained, 92% of employers report that they would find it 'quite useful' or 'very useful' in helping them to source training provision.
Who can apply?

Any organisation providing and delivering training and development solutions can use the Training Quality Standard as an assessment framework, regardless of its size, ownership, governance or funding arrangements.  The Training Quality Standard has been designed to be neutral with respect to these factors, and to be non-prescriptive as to the delivery model.