Dear All
I have been asked to clarify some points about SLC's instructions to centre
managers to not use the ATQuote comparative quotation service for equipment and
AIT Training quotes (www.atquote.co.uk). As there is a fair amount of
confusion on this topic, I thought it might be useful to share this publicly,
and would appreciate this being forwarded to other relevant mailing lists.
As you may know, Matthew Hall emailed centre managers on 21st August,
instructing them not to use ATQuote, stating that it appears to be in conflict
with the QAF, and has not been signed off by SLC.
I have confirmed with SFE that there is no clear conflict with the QAF, and
that this statement to the sector was likely made in error. In fact, DSA-QAG
were contacted soon after the service went into beta. They have examined
sample quotes produced by ATQuote to confirm that they comply with the QAF
Template for equipment and training quotes, which is a requirement for most
quotation services in the sector, and no issues have been raised.
I have also confirmed with SFE that they do not maintain a list of 'signed off'
services, and that there is not currently a process for submitting a service to
be 'signed off'. In actual fact, it appears that SFE were unaware of several
of the services being used to source equipment and training quotes, much less
having signed them off. This appears to be no obstacle to their continued use
in the sector.
Currently there are several online tools used to source equipment and training
quotes for DSA purposes. The majority of the equipment suppliers have an
online portal. In addition there is the CQS service, the Zelda service in use
at Contact Associates, and the NNAC Wiki and CLASS Dataservices site which are
used for AIT Training quotes. At present, there has been no clear statement
from SLC, either to my company or the wider sector, explaining why ATQuote is
the only service, among many functionally identical services, that is not
permitted.
As the concerns in Matthew Hall's original email appear to be unfounded, it is
unclear why the instructions to centre managers have not been retracted. It
also raises questions about why this action was taken without verifying the
statements made about ATQuote, or indeed contacting my company to discuss them.
I am hoping that clarification on all these issues will be forthcoming.
Best
Tom Woodward
Sunstone Consulting Solutions
www.sunstonecs.com
[log in to unmask]
07940 002 190
|