Introduction
National Occupational Standards (NOS) are benchmark statements of competence you can expect an individual to demonstrate at a given level and for a specific activity.
Sector skills councils relevant to the sector and occupations they represent, develop, maintain and update NOS. We are the sector skills council for social services in Scotland and are partners in the UK wide sector skills council – Skills for Care and Development(Opens new window).
When developing NOS, we work with Skills for Care and Development, employers and other stakeholders to make sure the standards reflect the needs of the social work, social care and children and young people workforce and changes to practice, legislation, policy and technology.
In Scotland NOS are used by 80% of the social service workforce in the form of qualifications.
- NOS underpin Higher National Certificates, Professional Development Awards and more.
- NOS are used as SVQs by the social service sector.
- One of the qualification criteria for individuals registering with us is that the qualification is based on the NOS.
- Modern Apprenticeship Frameworks in Scotland are based on NOS as SVQs.
We work with several groups of NOS, including adults and children and young people as well as social work, leadership and management for care services and commissioning, procurement and contracting in care services. Find more details on the National Occupational Standards website(Opens new window).