Accreditation of in-company training programmes – setting the standard

Accreditation is the formal recognition of a person’s learning achievements which is linked to an internal or external standard. Many learning and development activities are often linked to some kind of accreditation, usually a qualification, but this is not always the case.

What it is

Professional accreditation involves meeting the standards set by a particular sector or industry body. The ACT sets standards for those working in and with treasury. This is done through its competency framework which describes the skills, knowledge and behaviours individuals should possess no matter what stage of their career they're at.

These standards, or competencies, underpin the ACT qualifications pathway and training courses, acting as an industry benchmark for professionals to align their treasury related learning and development activities to.

How it works

But it's not just the ACT’s own programmes that are accredited. If you are running an internal development programme and can meet a range of quality criteria, then your own organisation could gain ACT accreditation for its internal training courses.

The ACT is an Awarding Body that can review an organisation’s internal training programme and benchmark its learning objectives against the ACT’s Competency Framework. This does two things:

• It allows the ACT to identify whether there is suitable content at the right level to meet organisational needs
• It allows the ACT to make a judgement as to whether this content is of the required level, depth and breadth to be able to accredit it

Most accredited programmes contain an element of assessment in order to test that participants have met the requirements of the learning objectives.

Sometimes organisations will have some level of assessment built into in-company programmes, but quite often this part is lacking.

The ACT, in carrying out the review of the programme, will also look at any assessment methods employed and again will benchmark this against national assessment standards to ensure there is rigour within the programme.

If an organisation does not have the capability to develop and run assessments, the ACT can support this process with guidance, resources and online infrastructure to deliver testing where necessary.

Once accreditation is awarded, the ACT carries out ongoing quality assurance monitoring to ensure the programme delivers expected outcomes to the required standard.

Benefits

There are a number of benefits for organisations in this approach:

• We use existing content and programmes to be accredited, saving cost and time to develop something new
• Using company specific programmes means the organisation can direct training exactly to the development needs it has, again saving time, effort and budget from not training in areas which are not business critical
• Offers a kitemark of quality from a global and impartial professional body which is valued by the profession – certificates and materials can use the ACT accredited programme kitemark
• Where training programmes don’t meet the benchmark, the ACT can identify improvements and provide content, assessments and infrastructure to raise the standard, leaving the organisation free to concentrate on what it does best

[su_box title="Find out more" box_color="#51284F" radius="1"]For more information on In-Company Accreditation, contact the Client Solutions team on +44 (0)20 7847 2526 or drop us a line at clientsolutions@treasurers.org[/su_box]