Most of us will remember the rise and fall of the DTI’s Consultancy Brokerage Service (CBS). Mercifully, those days are long gone and the Business Link and Tec markets have moved on.
Since the demise of CBS, last autumn, a new consultant accreditation scheme, called Selectassure, has become an established front runner.
Indeed, our research suggests that as many as 70 per cent of Business Links already recognise Selectassure as an accepted quality standard for consultants. Registered consultants qualify for the “prize” of access to grant aid-funded work, as well as recognition of their calibre. So what’s behind the Selectassure standard and how can consultants benefit from achieving registration?
It must be said that at #275 for registration to a “region” and a further #100 to cover all participating Business Links and Tecs, it’s not cheap.
However, Selectassure registration has real value – a glimpse of the map above shows where the Selectassure standard is currently recognised.
Some dispensations have already been agreed – notably for Full IMC Members and Fellows – and for consultants currently registered under the (northern-based) “CAS” accreditation scheme. Nonetheless, Selectassure remains a quality product at a premium price.
It has been designed to meet the requirements of the Department of Trade & Industry’s and Department for Education and Employment’s declared quality standards for “advisers” and we anticipate incorporating the new Investors in People standard, when finally announced. Accreditation is based on the individual (making it usefully portable), with details of the consultant’s practice included.
To become fully registered, consultants must be able to demonstrate a professional track-record and fulfil the requirements outlined in the table. The rigour of the scheme is underlined by the requirement to undergo our unique “Situational Assessment Interview”. This entails an in-depth review of a consultant’s vocational and process skills with two specially trained and regularly observed professional peers (selected from a panel of over 80 interviewers). In the London & the South East regions, this process is being managed on our behalf by IMC. Having reviewed the table of requirements, most would agree that consultants who can meet and maintain this standard deserve to be termed professionals!
Will Selectassure registration lead to more work? That’s the $64,000 question. We estimate that our client base of Business Links and Tecs represent an annual budget of around #35m worth of matched spend and some 6,000 projects. Given our intent to maintain the register at around 2,500 consultants, that averages out to around two to three projects per consultant each year.
Our ambitions are to establish Selectassure as a de facto consultant accreditation standard and work with others to agreed common core requirements for professional “advisers”. For further information or an application to register, call us on 0181-309 6242 and we’ll do our best to help you.