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This paper sets out a process model for standard setting in local government services. It aims to show how service providers can generate standards which are more relevant to their consumers yet can be achieved within the constraints faced by local councils. The model is based on results from research surveys carried out with Scottish local authorities. The research found that key stakeholders can make an important contribution to the process of setting useful standards and that these standards should be published and measured. Feedback on the performance of standards was also considered to be an important way to close the loop on a quality approach to setting standards.

Health care, one of the most dynamic sectors in Italy, is studied with a particular focus on outsourcing non‐core activities such as facility management (FM) services. The project's goals are to define national standards to balance and control facility service evolution, and to drive FM services towards organisational excellence. The authors, in cooperation with a pool of facility service providers and hospitals managers, studied cleaning services – one of the most critical areas.

This article describes the research steps and findings following definition and publication of the Italian standard and its application to an international benchmarking process. The method chosen for developing the Italian standard was to merge technical, strategic and organisational aspects with the goal of standardising the contracting system, giving service providers the chance to improve efficiency and quality, while helping healthcare organisations gain from a better, more reliable and less expensive service.

The Italian standard not only improved services but also provided adequate control systems for outsourcing organisations. In this win‐win context, it is hoped to continually drive FM services towards organisational excellence.

This study is specific to the Italian national healthcare system. However, the strategic dynamics described are common to many other contexts.

A systematic method for improving hospital FM services is presented.

The authors believe that lessons learned from their Italian case study can be used to better understand and drive similar services in other countries or in other FM service outsourcing sectors.

The Government's proposals for the regulation of social care services are set out in the Social Services White Paper. They include changes to the inspection of services, the abolition of the Central Council for Education and Training in Social Work and the establishment of a new statutory body, the General Social Care Council (GSCC), to be responsible for regulating conduct and practice standards for all who work in social care. This article describes the background to the proposed general council and its links to training and service regulation, outlines the Government's approach to setting and enforcing standards, and suggests ways in which the general council will affect those who use and work in learning disability services.

Compiled by K.G.B. Bakewell covering the following journals published by MCB University Press: Facilities Volumes 8‐18; Journal of Property Investment & Finance Volumes 8‐18; Property Management Volumes 8‐18; Structural Survey Volumes 8‐18.

This paper sets out to consider the role that can be played by independent professional accreditation systems and processes in influencing and grounding the intrinsic quality of what is offered by a service provider who has secured this certification.

The approach takes the form of personal interviews conducted with senior management personnel within a range of accommodation providers who were responsible for preparing their accreditation submission.

More than 80 percent of respondents agreed that the process of applying for accreditation forced a critical review of all aspects of their operations, and heightened their awareness of things that could prove problematic and ways by which these problems could be effectively countered. Respondents also agreed that the process served to motivate the development and detailed documentation of policies, systems and procedures, which enabled greater consistency in the standard of what is provided.

The findings suggest that rigorous accreditation processes help service providers to review and confirm the appropriateness of what may already be in place, to ground the quality of what might need to be put in place, and to improve the standard of what is currently in place.

The paper augments what is posited by the service‐profit chain framework, shows how a focus on intrinsic quality can help to close the service design and standards gap, and also shows how extrinsic and independent professional accreditation processes can ground and enable the intrinsic quality and standard of what is offered.

Index by subjects, compiled by K.G.B. Bakewell covering the following journals: Facilities Volumes 8‐18; Journal of Property Investment & Finance Volumes 8‐18; Property Management Volumes 8‐18; Structural Survey Volumes 8‐18.

Compiled by K.G.B. Bakewell covering the following journals published by MCB University Press: Facilities Volumes 8‐18; Journal of Property Investment & Finance Volumes 8‐18; Property Management Volumes 8‐18; Structural Survey Volumes 8‐18.

The purpose of this paper is to review the evolution and development of customer service performance measures in the electricity sector since privatization in 1989, and then examine the impact of a specific recent energy regulatory requirement (known as information and incentives project (IIP)) on the organizational management of an exemplar electricity distribution company. Also discussed is how the sector has tried to learn from benchmarks from a number of such literary disciplines as economics, marketing service quality, and total quality management.

The research first presents a survey of the historical development of performance standards based on archival documentation. It is then augmented by the employment of a longitudinal “tracer study”, involving the isolation and firsthand real time qualitative observations of a company's key strategic and operational activities, to understand how they related to the other organizational phenomena at large. This process spanned an investigative period of two years.

The paper finds that much of the early standards used in electricity immediately after the sector's privatization rested much on those in the water and gas safety sectors, which themselves were then admittedly inadequate in UK. The IIP, a complementary set of service quality standards, worked on these early problems, but the implementation of the new scheme proved problematic and warranted major organizational reengineering, as shown in the exemplar company, ElectriCo. IIP has impacted on organizational management mostly in the areas of: higher‐level strategic change, causing noticeable internal confusion during strategic transitions, building a performance management system, improvements in performance data, and establishing more effective ways for management.

While the case example used in the research is a regional monopoly and is a good representation of the context in which the service standards operate, the findings are limited to the one company. It is a UK specific context without international comparison.

The research has combined archival research with an innovative firsthand methodological approach (tracer studies). Its value is in how the story of service standards in electricity (and specifically distribution) has been augmented from the early customer service standards to the most recent IIP considerations. It also looks from within the company, which has been missing in longstanding research in the more traditional disciplines such as economics.

The Australian National Standards for Mental Health Services (Commonwealth Department of Health and Family Services, 1996) were developed as a plank of the first National Mental Health Plan (Commonwealth Department of Human Services and Health, 1992). Over the two subsequent national five‐year plans, they have become the basis for accreditation surveys for all Australian mental health services, both hospital and community components, whether acute or rehabilitation oriented, throughout the psychiatric career of all mental health service users and their families. The development and implementation of these standards are described. Innovations in this set of standards are detailed, specifying requirements of each phase of care, including access, entry, exit and re‐entry, and the parallel development and training of paid consumer and family carer surveyors. Largely due to the brevity and clarity of these innovations, because of a broad consultation process, and incorporation of interventions and service delivery systems that are both evidence‐based and congenial to service users, they have achieved a wide acceptance among, and championing by, service user and family carer networks. A recent review of the national standards was timely and welcomed, but is still incomplete, contentious in its protracted process, has a lack of consistent consultation and contains diluted and disorganised results. Implementation guides will now be developed to be superimposed on this revision in an attempt to improve and navigate it.

Compiled by K.G.B. Bakewell covering the following journals published by MCB University Press: Facilities Volumes 8‐18; Journal of Property Investment & Finance Volumes 8‐18; Property Management Volumes 8‐18; Structural Survey Volumes 8‐18.