The Model was developed by the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) and is based on good practice from thousands of organisations. A slightly adapted version of the core Model is designed for use in the public and voluntary sectors.

Use of the Model involves a self-assessment asking searching questions about each area of the organisation’s business - covering an organisation’s results and the approaches needed to achieve those results. This assessment leads to a prioritised improvement action plan and (if desired) agreed scores for each part of the Model, which give a useful comparison with other organisations’ performance.

What the Model Covers:

• Leadership  How leaders develop and facilitate the achievement of the mission and vision, develop values required for long term success and implement these via appropriate actions and behaviours, and are personally involved in ensuring that our management system is developed and implemented.

• Policy & Strategy  How the organisation implements its mission and vision via a clear stakeholder focused strategy, supported by relevant policies, plans, objectives, targets and processes.

• People  How the organisation manages, develops and releases the knowledge and full potential of its people at an individual, team based and organisation wide level, and plans these activities in order to support our policy and business plan and the effective operation of its processes.

• Partnerships & Resources  How the organisation plans and manages its external partnerships and internal resources in order to support its policy and strategy and the effective operation of its processes.

• Processes  How the organisation designs, manages and improves its processes in order to support its policy and strategy and fully satisfy, and generate increasing value for its customers and other stakeholders.

• Customer results  What the organisation is achieving in relation to its external customers.

• People Results  What the organisation is achieving in relation to its people.

• Society Results  What the organisation is achieving in relation to local, national and international society as appropriate.

• Key Performance Results  What the organisation is achieving in relation to its planned performance.

This overview of the organisation’s achievements and the factors driving those achievements makes the Model a uniquely power tool.

The Model and other quality schemes
The Government promotes four main quality scheme: The Excellence Model, Charter Mark, Investors in People and ISO 9000.

Unlike the other schemes which concentrate on specific aspects of quality, the Model provides an overall framework for an organisation’s activities, while Investors in People, Charter Mark and ISO 9000 look in more detail at ways of improving performance. The Model helps its users to ask the right questions. The other three schemes help with the answers. The Excellence Model gives you an overview. The others concentrate on particular areas.

Benefits of using the Model
Using the EFQM Excellence Model for self-assessment provides you with a powerful framework to take forward continuous improvement in your organisation.  It provides:

• a rigorous and structured approach to continuous improvement

• an assessment based on facts and not perceptions

• a means to achieve consistency of direction and consensus on what needs to be done

• a means to integrate various quality initiatives into normal business operations

• a powerful diagnostic tool

• an objective assessment against a set of criteria which has become widely accepted across Europe

• a means of measuring progress over time through periodic self-assessment

• improvement activity focused where it is most needed

• a means to create enthusiasm amongst the people within the organisation, involve them in the improvement process and give fresh impetus to their pursuit of business excellence

• opportunities to promote and share excellence approaches within different areas of the organisation and with other organisations
  opportunities to recognise both progress and outstanding levels of achievement through internal awards

• a link between what the organisation needs to achieve and the strategies and processes needed to deliver its objectives

http://www.cmps.gov.uk/excellence