Delivery Evaluation of NAAS Phases 1 and 2
The Department for Education (DfE) has recently published their independent evaluation report on the National Assessment and Accreditation Programme, which can be found here.
An narrative from Felicity Allen, Deputy Director, UK Central Government states:
This programme is an important contribution to supporting the delivery of children’s services by encouraging social workers to continue development and maintain the knowledge and skills for effective practice as they progress through the profession.
- The report shows that NAAS was generally viewed to be beneficial by frontline staff, managers and local authority leaders and indicative early findings from the Value for Money analysis in Group 1 also suggest that NAAS is associated with a saving of £2.03 and £2.28 for every £1 spent on the programme.
- Local authority leaders across ‘NAAS sites’ felt that, irrespective of where they were on their improvement journeys, NAAS had helped to embed the Post-Qualifying Standards (PQS) into local systems.
- Awareness of the PQS was significantly higher for those in NAAS sites compared to non-NAAS sites.
- Social workers viewed the use of performance evaluation against the PQS (whether as part of the Practice Endorsement process or through PQS related training) as the most beneficial aspect of NAAS.
- We plan to use the findings of this evaluation to inform future policy decisions about the future expansion of NAAS.
