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Enforcement of Judgements and the Supreme Court Taxing Office achieve ISO 9000 Standard

Enforcement of Judgements and the Supreme Court Taxing Office (now the Court of Judicature of Northern Ireland Taxing Office) first in Northern Ireland Court Service to achieve ISO 9000 Standard - June 2007

The ISO 9001 Logo


Current Standard is ISO 9001:2000 Model which is one of a series of ISO 9000 quality management system standards created by the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO), a federation of 132 national standard bodies.

What is it?

ISO 9000 is a Standard designed to assist organisations in achieving "quality" whilst helping to assure customers that quality will be achieved.

EJO and SCTO have developed a Quality Management System which sets out how they manage their business. To do this they had to look at processes, how they interacted with each other, what resources were needed to run the processes and how to monitor and measure the processes. Secondly, it sets out the documentation needed to operate the system and how the documentation would be controlled.

What was required?

EJO conducted some research with other government departments to ascertain what value ISO would bring to their continuous improvement programme. The Senior Management Team decided that ISO would be the next step in improving business in terms of continuous review and improvement of processes.

Over 30 staff volunteered to learn about the process and training was delivered in the ISO Standard and internal quality auditing techniques to ISO 9001; 2000 requirements.

Eight members of staff made up the Quality Steering Group (QSG) led by the Quality Manager (QM) holding their first meeting on 25 January 2007. The QSG established quality measures, policy, objectives and a quality manual and led the project in the following tasks:

  • To identify and document work processes
  • To measure, analyse and improve processes
  • To develop a plan for reviewing processes and record results
  • To document review meetings which include identifying changes/improvements
  • To establish controls for all documentation and records
  • To ensure that all procedures required by the Standard are in place

The Internal process reviewers delivered a schedule of audits required by the Standard which have brought beneficial outcomes to the business processes.

Mandatory procedures had to be documented and implemented:

  • Document control
  • Record handling/disposal
  • Process reviews/audits
  • Corrective action
  • Preventive action
  • Non-conformities

At the pre audit on 17 May 2007 by NQA the EJO and SCTO documentation was approved with no corrective action recommended.

At the full audit on 21 June 2007 the EJO and SCTO were recommended for full certification with a minor non compliance and five observations.

Although at the certification stage EJO and SCTO will continue to review, analyse and improve business processes by using the Quality Management System to ensure quality in everything they do.

The Quality Management System of the Enforcement of Judgments Office including the Supreme Court Taxing Office has been assessed and registered by NQA against the provisions of BS EN ISO 9001:2000 and has now received a Certificate of Registration.

If you need any further information how ISO 9001 in managed within the Enforcement of Judgments Office and the Supreme Court Taxing Office, please contact Mary Robinson (Quality Manager) at maryrobinson@courtsni.gov.uk 

Enforcement of Judgments Office & Court of Judicature Taxing Office
7th Floor,
Bedford House,
16-22 Bedford Street,
Belfast
BT2 7FD