Groups and Committees

Senior IT Forum
Intellect IT Supplier Code of Best Practice

Compliance Mechanism

The following provides a brief guide for organisations who have adopted the Code and would like to ensure that they comply with its Commitments.

Stage 1: A Letter of Adoption

The Letter of Adoption is a formal statement of intent, signed by a Board Member, and must include the following three elements:

a statement of the supplier's commitment to adopt the Code;
a paragraph asserting that the supplier will inform Intellect if a customer has alleged that, in their opinion, a serious breach of the Code has occurred; and
details of a designated contact person.

The Letter of Adoption, which will be renewed annually, will remain with Intellect and will not be made publicly available, although companies are free to display it on their own website if they so wish.

Stage 2: Statement of Approach (SoA)

The Statement of Approach is a more detailed document, which details the supplier's policy on the Code, describing how they will comply in terms of both process and behaviour and outlining how their compliance will be demonstrated. It could also include evidence in the form of testimonials or references from previous or existing customers.

A key principle of the scheme is that compliance with the Code needs to be demonstrated to the customer, not to Intellect, and affects all the phases of a commercial relationship or programme lifecycle. The SoA must include an overall approach to achieving compliance to the Code and the means of demonstrating compliance. It will outline the means by which each of the Ten Commitments will be met and how this will be evidenced to the Customer.

For example, the Supplier may choose to link assessment with an existing assessment programme such as ISO9001 and use those outputs as evidence.

The Supplier's SoA will be posted on the Intellect website for access by all public sector organisations. Suppliers may wish to produce identically worded statements in other formats for marketing purposes.

Stage 3: Handling Complaints

This part of the Compliance Mechanism is there to ensure that Suppliers act in a way consistent with the spirit and intentions of the Code. If there is a perceived problem, Suppliers will be supported in re-establishing their position and reputation within the Code. However, a Supplier who fails to comply with the Code could be removed from the SCoBP register of adopting companies after the complaints handling procedure has been followed.

For further information on the compliance mechanism email:

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