SIC cleansing serviced praised as it achieves international recognition

The council’s cleansing service is the latest in an ever-growing list of services to have achieved official recognition for the quality way in which it is run.

The service, which runs the essy kerts, public toilets, street cleaning and grounds maintenance, has met the internationally-recognised ISO9001 quality standard.

Cleansing service manager Jonathan Emptage said: “This is an excellent achievement for the service and is down to the hard work of our team of staff. The external inspector, Alex McClymont, was particularly impressed with the positive attitude and competent approach to the staff he met. He even went as far as to describe the Esplanade toilets as ‘a credit to Shetland Islands Council’.”

The ISO9001 standard is used by 750,000 organisations in 162 countries across the world so is widely recognised as a very important indicator of quality.

SIC chief executive Alistair Buchan said: “Getting external accreditation such as this is a great endorsement of how well council services are being run. I’m aware that the assessment process can be pretty intensive and it’s fair to say you won’t get an ISO award unless you have everything absolutely to the standard. So I would congratulate the staff involved and think this is something that the council should rightly be proud of.”

The council has a good record of achieving quality accreditation, with awards already having been achieved by: internal audit, Train Shetland, housing, waste management, ports and harbours, trading standards, building maintenance, Shetland Library, the Janet Courtney Hostel, schools, adult learning and community care.