News

Levels of confusion in schools and public authorities over guidelines and policy are unnecessary and avoidable.

Reading, 20th June 2006. PolicyMatter Ltd today called for more effective use of technology to help address the confusion identified in schools over vetting of applicants for teaching posts. It said that many of the criticisms detailed in the recent Ofsted report can be addressed using effective policy management and auditing software.

The study by the education watchdog pointed levels criticism at all levels, from the Department for Education and Skills for issuing "confusing guidance", to headteachers and local authority staff for not ensuring all the correct checks are being made.

“Drafting policies and directives to protect children from paedophiles is only part of the process,” said PolicyMatter Managing Director Chris Heslop. “What the report showed is that under the current system there are major shortcomings in the ability of government departments, local authorities and schools to be sure that the relevant parties have read, understood and confirmed their agreement to the policies.”

PolicyMatter software is used by a growing number of public and private sector organisations to do exactly this for a wide range of policies including those addressing HR, information security, confidentiality or child safety issues. The system allows these organisations to ensure staff have understood and signed up to policies and keeps a detailed audit trail of all the versions

“One of Ofsted’s strongest criticisms was with regard to ‘confusing guidance’”, added Heslop. “But that’s something that inevitably may occur with sensitive issues. What PolicyMatter does is pinpoint those elements of policy that do consistently cause confusion, allowing the problem to easily identified and rapidly addressed.”

NOTES TO EDITORS

PolicyMatter is the solution developed by PolicyMatter Ltd and used by organisations to ensure staff understand and sign up to key policies, as well as providing them with detailed reports and audit trails. Adopted by major organisations in finance, the public sector, manufacturing, retail and service industries, PolicyMatter is used to solve problems of policy life-cycle management in compliance, risk, HR and information security.

Developed by the same team that created the market-leading MIMEsweeper content security solution PolicyMatter was awarded a five star rating and ‘Best Buy’ recommendation in August 2005 by SC Magazine in its review of leading Policy Management solutions. PolicyMatter Ltd is an IBM Business Partner.

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PolicyMatter
Tel: 0870 2403 620
Email: info@policymatter.com