The Committed to Excellence (C2E) award is a European-wide recognition scheme that has been developed by the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM). The EFQM framework enables organisation to deliver business excellence through the embedding of a continuous improvement culture throughout the whole organisation.

Caledonia Group chief executive, Julie Cosgrove, said: “Customer Excellence is one of our main priorities in our business plan and it remains a top priority for us. Achieving excellence is critical to the association going forward, so if we can deliver sustainable excellent services then our customers will be very satisfied and want to stay with us.”

The Caledonia excellence journey was launched by Julie at the association’s Staff Conference in May 2014 under the banner of CREAM (Caledonia Recognising Excellence and Assessment Model).

Julie added: “CREAM was introduced using the EFQM framework to provide that structure to allow us to evaluate our performance and setting out a process by which we could measure where we are now and where we think our key areas for improvement.”

The C2E process required the association to conduct a self-assessment using the against the nine EFQM criteria. As a result of the self-assessment process, three improvement projects were identified that had objectives such as connecting staff to the business plan to achieve the ‘golden thread’ concept; addressing energy and fuel poverty for tenants; improving staff engagement and performance appraisal arrangements.

Robert Farrelly, account director, Quality Scotland, said: “As part of the Quality Scotland Assessment team, I was delighted with in depth knowledge and commitment, displayed by the Team at Caledonia Housing Association, and pleased to confirm that the Organisation had met the required standards to receive the much coveted, EFQM Committed to Excellence, accreditation.”