Internal quality assurance in environmental agencies

Abstract: Quality assurance is a management challenge for every institution. It is associated with a number of key decisions, some of which are related to set objectives to ensure quality assurance is achieved in an effective and efficient way. Public sector organisations are no exceptions in their new approach of implementing risk-based decision making in their operations. In this project, an environmental agency aspires to quality assurance in risk-based decision making through the development of a benchmarking tool. An inductive approach opened up a simultaneous process of an academic literature review and a workshop among stakeholders with experience of the agency’s roles. The aim of these activities was to identify areas and questions that established quality through an approach of risk-based decision making in the agency. A survey was developed and tested which gave inputs of the questions' context and the pedagogical framing of them. The survey that was developed may offer guidance for continued development and quality management. It may also offer guidance and awareness about the agency’s values, mission, vision and objectives as well as perceptions of knowledge, understanding, and application of certain concepts such as: best practice and maturity. New approaches of quality assurance within environmental agencies have given rise to gaps in the academic literature. Even if benchmarking and quality assurance are well-known practices, developing benchmarking for risk-based decision making within environmental agencies is completely new. Implementation of benchmarking in regulatory settings is a new approach for quality enhancement, in particular for environmental agencies. TQM and benchmarking have been known for decades within management literature but this new approach, could make a contribution, to improve the operation of environmental agencies and also other regulators.