Various sectors of UK industry and other public and private Sector enterprises became very aware in the 1970s that their output, quality and standards of productivity needed to improve their competitiveness and productivity and began to explore quality related initiatives including internal and external benchmarking.

The trend was accelerated during the 1980s by the policies of the Thatcher administration which had as a prime policy target the removal of Government subsidy to the private sector (e.g the car manufacture and steel sectors) as well as challenging targets for cost reduction and efficiency measures in all public sector activity.

An example of a UK government initiative to promote the application of benchmarking is the "Public Sector Benchmarking Service" (PSBS), a joint initiative of the Cabinet Office and HM Customs and Excise. The PSBS is the focal point within the Public Sector for managing knowledge on benchmarking.

In the UK, a substantial number of benchmarking exercises were undertaken not only with national and sectoral objectives but also to provide comparisons and examples of best practice on an international level.

Some examples are given below:

Cabinet Office Quality Division to improve the quality of the delivery of public services. The Cabinet Office has been running a UK Public Sector Benchmarking Project since 1996.

For more information:http://www.cabinet-office.uk.egg/1999/benchmarking.htm

HM Customs and Excise Benchmarking Office to improve performance by comparison with organisations in the public and private sector. HM Customs and Excise has also developed a Hybrid Benchmarking tool, and is involved in co-ordinating a benchmarking exercise across all Ministries and Government departments.

For more information, contact Barbara Topping: Barbara.Topping@hmce.gov.uk

Construction Industry (CIRIA) to provide comparison of the work practice and project management techniques as well as to produce financial parameters for bidding and tendering.

National Health Service - to provide both cost and efficiency indicators for a wide selection of differing hospital and care units and to identify any significant differences in practice and performance to assist management groups.

Utilities - to help a significant parts of the former nationalised utilities water, gas, electricity, telecommunications to achieve the best practice standards necessary for them to become cost effective as regulated, quasi-monopolistic private companies.

Post Office to provide a basis for the Post Office to become a competitive force whilst remaining in the public sector as a Public Corporation, and to compete in subsidiary sectors (Parcels and Post Office Counters) where competition was with private sector competitors. This included international comparisons.

British Airways BA was an early privatisation target of the Government and ,apart from internal Benchmarking, has led a grouping of airlines seeking to meet high standards of engineering practice without the loss of integrity of processes essential to aircraft certification. This has occurred in a sector where competition is a vital component of commercial success.

Public service performance indicators  Since 1993/94 the Audit Commission (www.audit-commission.gov.uk) has collected and published performance information on council, police and fire services in England and Wales. This means that you can see how performance has changed over time as well as comparing the performance of different authorities. For 2000/1 there will be data for both Audit Commission and Best Value PIs. 

From thier website one can download the latest PI data on an Excel spreadsheet. Previous years' data, back to 1993/4, is also available for download in Excel. There is also a PI program which allows you to see PI data for your chosen area of England or Wales.

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