The North West Development Agency commissioned Prowess to pilot the standard in the North West.

The project runs from December 2008 to March 2011 and aims to assess 30 organisations in total against the WBC standard.

The first assessment phase in Year 1 started in April 2009 and 52 organisations applied for the 15 spaces available.

The project is being rigorously evaluated, with the first interim evaluation report being produced in March 2010 and the final evaluation being produced in March 2011.  Both evaluation reports will be widely disseminated and used to build upon the future.

Accreditation of the assessment process is an important step in the development of the standard to make it "international ready".

Assessments against all other important quality standards (eg ISO9001, SFEDI etc) are undertaken by independent assessors who have undergone accredited training and the WBC standard will be the same.

The independence of assessors maintains consistency and integrity, which are crucial when rolling out the standard not only in the wider UK but also internationally.

Accreditation also ensures that knowledge, experience and information is retained within region, an important element in building localised and globalised WBC communities and, working with Manchester Business School, the WBC standard will have a world-class international accreditation framework.