The City Rada of Kovel, Volyn Oblast, is launching implementation of an ISO 9001-certified Quality Management System (QMS) in its Executive Committee, the city hall told the LED Monitor on Friday.
Executive Committee Administrator Borys Zinchuk reported that on Feb. 14, 2007, the City Rada signed an agreement with the Development Support Center (DSC), a Lutsk-based limited company, on the QMS implementation. “We are planning to launch the implementation as soon as the next week, and get the QMS certified by the end of this year,” he said.
The implementation process will include several phases, some of them overlapping, according to Olha Ivankiv, director of the Development Support Center, which represents the Poland-based Young Democracy Foundation.
First, the DSC consultants will do an “introductory audit” to form a notion of how the city hall performs, and what weaknesses there are. The introductory audit will take about a week, and will result in a conclusion written by the consultants, Ms. Ivankiv said.
During the next phase, which will start on the second month of the project implementation and last for about three month, according to Ms. Ivankiv’s estimate, DSC will hold three-day training sessions for the Executive Committee’s officers. She said the exact contents of the training will depend on the audit conclusion.
Both Mr. Zinchuk and Ms. Ivankiv said the training will be more practical than theoretical. At this stage in the process, development of necessary documents and introduction of changes in the city hall routine will also begin.
After completion of the training course and exams, the trainees will receive internal auditors’ certificates issued by the Development Support Center and the Young Democracy Foundation, and will carry out an internal audit of the organization. Based on the audit results, the document development exercise will be finalized, Ms. Ivankiv said.
The final phase is the QMS certification, which will be carried out by an external auditor from the Germany-based TÜV Rheinland Group, according to the DSC director.
The Young Democracy Foundation presented the QMS implementation project in January 2007, the Official Web Site of Kovel reported. The system will “ensure team work of all City Rada units, eliminate duplication of their functions, reduce time spending, ensure prompt access to information, maximally take account of citizens’ needs, ensure transparency of administrative decision-making, improve quality of the decisions, and define a clear and transparent procedure for their execution,” the report reads.
According to the International Organization for Standardization, “ISO 9001:2000 specifies requirements for a quality management system where an organization (1) needs to demonstrate its ability to consistently provide product that meets customer and applicable regulatory requirements, and (2) aims to enhance customer satisfaction through the effective application of the system, including processes for continual improvement of the system and the assurance of conformity to customer and applicable regulatory requirements.”
The Young Democracy Foundation (Fundacja Młoda Demokracja) is a Polish NGO certified by the TÜV Rheinland Group for implementation of quality management systems. In December 2006, the foundation implemented an ISO 9001-certified QMS in the city hall of Lutsk, the capital of the Volyn Oblast.
TÜV Rheinland Group is “one of the leading providers of technical services worldwide,” according to the company’s web site. The Group’s member companies include TÜV Rheinland Ukraine and TÜV Rheinland Polska.
Kovel is one of the USAID Local Economic Development project’s target cities, which worked out, with assistance from the project, its Economic Development Strategic Plan in February 2006. The plan focuses on three critical issues: business climate improvement, human resource development, and communal infrastructure development. One of goals under the Business Climate Improvement action plan is to create a favorable investment climate in Kovel.
It is expected that the ISO 9001-certified quality management system in the local government will attract investors to the city, according to the report on the Kovel official web site.
Sources:
http://kovel.osp-ua.info/index.php?news=19948
http://www.de.tuv.com/
http://www.fmd.lublin.pl/
http://www.iso.org/