4. How are National Occupational Standards developed? Who is involved in this process?
Sector Skills Councils (SSC) are responsible for maintaining and developing the National Occupational Standards for the industries and sectors they cover.
NOS are industry-led
National Occupational Standards (NOS) are developed by employers and other stakeholders to describe the competences required in an occupational area. The SSC or other standards setting organisation is responsible for working with employers and other stakeholders to develop, maintain and help implement NOS.
A key part of the process is employer and stakeholder engagement across the 4 UK nations and SSCs are required to carry out appropriate consultation in each of the 4 nations.
A typical NOS development process
SSCs will work with employers to use organisations’ role profiles (job descriptions) and the experience of industry practitioners to develop Functional and Occupational Maps.
Functional Maps - are developed to describe the broad work activities that take place across the sector. It describes the work activities in general terms to build up a picture of the type of work (functions) that are carried out by an individual member of staff.
Occupational maps – are developed to chart the overall area of the NOS project.They identify all the accepted broad job roles at all levels within a sector.
This step-by-step interactive guide (opens in a new window) provides an introduction and background to the principles of Functional and Occupational analysis.
Draft NOS are also presented for wider industry consultation. As NOS need to apply to both SMEs and large organisations it is essential that many industry practitioners feedback into their development.
To learn more about the background to NOS development view this step-by-step interactive guide (opens in a new window)
Once developed NOS are reviewed
Sector Skills Councils are responsible for ensuring that the NOS are up to date and reflect changes in legislation and industry practices. This will mean that NOS will be reviewed as appropriate to the sector. Full reviews are typically carried out every two/three years, with small changes being made as appropriate prior to this.
For more information in relation to the development of NOS in your industry please refer to the relevant SSC.