A practical SQUARE guide on quality service for boards of disability service providers for adults with intellectual disability in Australia

Ultimate responsibility for quality service delivery by disability service providers for adults with intellectual disability rests with the boards of those organisations. Boards have robust mechanisms for financial management and quite rightly regard financial solvency of the disability service provider as a key responsibility. They are less likely to understand and appreciate their responsibilities in ensuring an equivalent high standard in quality service, in responding to breaches of quality service and in enacting through management the necessary changes in disability service provision. To address this these limitations, it is proposed that boards have access to formal opportunities for engaging with people with intellectual disability and their families on quality service, systems and partnerships with consumers and management by which they can identify, measure and analyse the dimensions of quality service, and data-driven processes for making judgements that facilitate clear directions to management on quality service.

The paper comprises a series of six steps proposed as mechanisms for boards in squarely meeting their obligations in relation to quality service. The acronym SQUARE representing Service Quality: Understanding, Appreciating, Responding and Enacting is used to encapsulate the core responsibilities of boards in relation to the complex and little understood term ‘quality service’ within the disability sector. The article is set within an Australian context though the six steps of the SQUARE guide are easily able to be reframed for application across international settings.