National Occupational Standards

Skills for Justice is the standards-setting body for the Justice sector.

What are National Occupational Standards?
National Occupational Standards (NOS) describe competent performance in terms of outcomes.

Together with a defined assessment strategy, developed in parallel with the standards, they allow a clear assessment of competence against nationally agreed standards of performance, across a range of workplace circumstances for all roles.

Today, National Occupational Standards are viewed by modern managers as an indispensable tool for managing a highly skilled workforce. They are used widely to support individual and organisational development and quality assurance at all levels. They provide benchmarks of good practice across the UK.

National Occupational Standards also form the basis of qualifications, most commonly National Vocational Qualifications (NVQs) and Scottish Vocational Qualifications (SVQs). The Standards are also used in the Integrated Competency Framework(ICF).

Skills for Justice regularly undertake projects to develop new NOS and review existing ones to ensure they are up-to-date and relevant.

Draft standard unit codes (identifier) are subject to change when approved by UKCG and final codes are allocated in accordance with the Skills for Justice Functional Map.

Access the full range of Justice sector National Occupational Standards using our excellent NOS Finder Tool