18 March 2003
Press release
Conference promotes best practice in higher education management through benchmarking
Benchmarking - defining a level of performance and then seeking out good practice to improve on that performance - is the subject of a conference today (18 March) run by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE).
Benchmarking has been used in the private sector for many years, but to date there has been relatively limited use within the higher education and the public sector.
Through HEFCE's Good Management Practice programme, higher education institutions have received funding for a range of projects to improve management processes, several of which feature benchmarking (see note 2).
Nearly 200 people attended the conference, with delegates and speakers from higher education institutions, central government departments, the Public Sector Benchmarking Service, the British Quality Foundation and UNESCO.
Giving the closing plenary address at the conference, The Rt Hon Mr Paul Boateng MP, Chief Secretary to the Treasury, said:
'More money is going into education, and higher education will feel the benefit. But investment on its own is not enough. That investment must be matched with reform - reforms to structures and to funding arrangements - with the Government pointing the way forward in the recent HE white paper. And it means a responsibility on the higher education institutions themselves, to look at their own systems, their own processes, and their own management procedures, to make them real and relevant to the concerns of students, academics, and society. I support today's conference as a tool for addressing these important issues.'
HEFCE's Director of Finance and Corporate Resources, Steve Egan, noted:
'The UK higher education sector is genuinely world-class, creating high employability for its graduates and excellent research. But to stay that way, the sector needs to continually innovate and improve. Higher education institutions have proved they are keen to share best practice and keen to learn from others. HEFCE, working with the sector, has actively promoted - and funded - many collaborative management improvement projects. We will continue to do this to help the sector maintain its high reputation in UK and around the world.'
END
Notes
1. HEFCE has allocated £10 million to the Good Management Practice programme, which funds collaborative management improvement projects run by higher education institutions and HE sector representative bodies.
2. Examples of projects using benchmarking to improve management are:
- Association of Managers in Higher Education Colleges - this well-established network of higher education colleges is benchmarking performance and practice in several areas, including learning resources, residences, procurement, marketing and quality assurance.
- English Universities Benchmarking Club - a consortium of research-led civic universities. It is benchmarking processes around several aspects of 'the student experience'. For example, it is comparing best practice in enrolment procedures, streamlining them to save time for staff and students.
3. Paul Boateng chairs the Public Services Productivity Panel at HM Treasury. This small group of senior business people and public sector managers was established to identify ways to improve the productivity of the public sector.