MEI's Quality, Environmental and Evaluation policies
MEI's Quality Policy
MEI's Environmental Policy
MEI's Evaluation Policy
MEI's Equality, Inclusion and Diversity Policy
Accreditation
MEI is ISO 9001 registered. MEI is ISO 14001 registered.
MEI's Quality Policy
Mathematics in Education and Industry (the 'Organisation') aims to provide defect free products and services to its customers on time and within budget.
The Organisation operates a Quality Management System that has gained BS EN ISO 9001: 2015 certification, including aspects specific to the provision of support for mathematics education through: curriculum development; improved teaching; improved teaching, learning and assessment materials; contributions to national policy; responses to the needs of stakeholders; and promotion of links between education and industry.
The management is committed to:
- The enhancement of customer satisfaction in a manner consistent with MEI's charitable purposes
- Developing and improving the Quality Management System
- Continually improving the effectiveness of the Quality Management System
The management seeks continuously to:
- Ensure that customer needs and expectations are determined and fulfilled with the aim of achieving customer satisfaction in a manner consistent with MEI's charitable purposes
- Communicate throughout the Organisation the importance of meeting customer needs and all relevant statutory and regulatory requirements
- Maintain the Quality Policy and its objectives
- Ensure that Management Reviews set and review the quality objectives, and reports on Internal Audit results, as a means of monitoring and measuring the processes and the effectiveness of the Quality Management System
- Ensure the availability of resources
The structure of the Quality Management System is defined in the Quality Manual.
All personnel understand the requirements of this Quality Policy and abide by the contents of the Quality Manual.
The Organisation complies with all relevant statutory and regulatory requirements.
The Organisation constantly monitors its quality performance and implements improvements when appropriate.
This Quality Policy is regularly reviewed in order to ensure its continuing suitability.
Copies of the Quality Policy are made available to all members of staff. Copies of the minutes of Management Reviews, or extracts thereof, are provided to individual members of staff in accordance with their role and responsibilities as a means of communicating the effectiveness of the Quality Management System.
MEI's Environmental Policy
Mathematics in Education and Industry (the 'Organisation') recognises the importance of environmental protection and is committed to operating its business responsibly and in fulfilment of its compliance obligations relating to the provision of support for mathematics education through: curriculum development; improved teaching; improved teaching, learning and assessment materials; contributions to national policy; responses to the needs of stakeholders; and promotion of links between education and industry. It is the Organisation's declared policy to operate with and to maintain good relations with all regulatory bodies.
It is the Organisation's objective to carry out all measures reasonably practicable to meet, exceed or develop all necessary or desirable requirements, to protect the environment and to continually improve the Environmental Management System to enhance environmental performance through the implementation of the following:
- Assess and regularly re-assess the environmental effects of the Organisation's activities
- Training of employees in environmental issues
- Minimise the production of waste
- Minimising material wastage
- Minimise energy wastage
- Promote the use of recyclable and renewable materials
- Prevent pollution in all its forms
- Control noise emissions from operations
- Minimise the risk to the general public and employees from operations and activities undertaken by the Organisation.
Top management demonstrates leadership and commitment with respect to the Environmental Management System by:
- Taking accountability for the effectiveness of the Environmental Management System
- Ensuring that the Environmental Policy and Environmental Objectives are established and are compatible with the strategic direction and the context of the Organisation
- Ensuring the integration of the Environmental Management System requirements into the Organisation's business processes
- Ensuring that the resources needed for the Environmental Management System are available
- Communicating the importance of effective environmental management and of conforming to the environmental management system requirements
- Ensuring that the Environmental Management System achieves its intended outcomes
- Directing and supporting persons to contribute to the effectiveness of the environmental management system
- Promoting continual improvement
- Supporting other relevant management roles to demonstrate their leadership as it applies to their areas of responsibility.
This Policy is communicated to all employees, suppliers and sub-contractors and is made available to interested parties.
MEI's Evaluation Policy
Purpose and scope
MEI's evaluation policy sets out its commitment to reflect on the activities that it undertakes to enable improvements to take place in the future. These activities include MEI's general work, as well as specific projects that are externally funded. This policy is not intended to be a detailed guide on procedures and practices for evaluation of MEI's activities. Instead it sets out MEI's overarching principles in the area.
Introduction to the Policy
Evaluation is a rigorous, systematic and objective process to make judgments about the impacts and merits of a piece of work, usually in relation to its effectiveness, efficiency and appropriateness.
MEI monitors and evaluates its practice, as well as reviewing trends over time, because it wishes to:
- assess whether its activities achieve the desired impact and whether they are likely to meet their targets
- assess which aspects of its activities work and which do not, so that areas for improvement can be identified
- assess whether its activities represent value for money
- be transparent, accountable and able to demonstrate effective use of its resources
- ensure the highest levels of satisfaction amongst beneficiaries and customers
Monitoring and evaluation are important for development and delivery because they provide evidence of what is being produced, how it is being implemented, whether it is achieving its objectives, and if not, why not. It supports evidence-based decision making, systems improvement, accountability and successful innovation.
General Principles
MEI strives to uphold the following general principles of evaluation:
- Evaluation will be planned early during the design of activities to ensure that the work can be evaluated and to increase the robustness of the evaluation.
- Evaluation will be appropriately resourced as part of activity design, taking into account what is feasible and realistic to achieve within time and budget constraints. A robust evaluation design may use both quantitative and qualitative methods including the use of third party data sets (e.g. examination entry data from the Department for Education); tools (e.g. standard feedback forms); and MEI's own data sets and information systems (e.g. databases).
- Evaluation will be rigorous, systematic and objective, with appropriate scale and design. Evaluation should be methodologically sound and replicable in accordance with the activity's size and significance.
- Evaluation will be timely and strategic to influence decision making, relative to the scope of the activity.
- Evaluation will be transparent and open. Comprehensive information on all aspects of the evaluation should be systematically recorded. Factual findings and conclusions should be explicitly justified and clearly distinguished from value judgments and recommendations.
Context and Audience
These principles apply to activities carried out both for MEI's general work and for projects that are directly externally funded. External funders may specify additional evaluation requirements as part of their contract and in such cases MEI endeavours to meet such requirements, further to its own evaluation policy framework.
For example a funder may require that an external evaluator be appointed to evaluate a project. When appointing an external evaluator, MEI will do so in an appropriate and transparent manner. Conditional on the level of funding received for a project and the amount assigned for evaluation, it may be determined that an open tendering process is required to recruit an external evaluator. MEI will undertake such a procedure with due diligence and with attention to any conditions stipulated by the external funder.
Responsibilities
Staff managing an activity should ensure consideration of evaluation requirements as set out in the General Principles of the Evaluation Policy. This will usually involve MEI's Research and Evaluation Manager. Outcomes from an activity will feed into policy and practice review through consideration by MEI's Management Committee.
MEI's Management Committee has overall responsibility for maintaining and improving MEI's work and standards. Where MEI holds externally recognised standards, such as ISO 9001, then these standards are maintained by a specific named MEI staff role. For example the Teacher Support Programme Leader ensures that the NCETM Continuing Professional Development Standard is correctly applied across the organisation.
MEI Equality, Inclusion and Diversity Policy Statement
MEI will not discriminate on grounds of protected characteristics: age, disability (including mental health), gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, or sexual orientation. MEI will not discriminate against any other individual or group, internal or external, for a reason related to one of the protected characteristics or for any other reason which cannot be objectively justified.
MEI is committed to creating an inclusive working environment in which:
- all people are able to give of their best
- there is no bullying and harassment or discrimination
- all decisions are based on merit.
