Benchmarking as a Foundation for Collaboration and Efficiency – response to UUK’s recommendations in the report, Towards a New Era of Collaboration 

UUK’s recent report, Towards a New Era of Collaboration, calls for universities to embrace deep, sector-wide transformation, identifying a common approach to efficiency benchmarking and collaborative partnerships as critical to achieving this. 

The report stresses that adopting a standardised approach to benchmarking is essential for universities to identify areas for improvement and facilitate meaningful collaboration. The sector is awash with data, which often muddies the water and forms barriers to institutional change. UUK identify a need for more systematic, transparent benchmarking tools, producing evidence-based insights to support smarter resource allocation and strategic planning. 

In this article, we outline how Etio’s widely used Performance Benchmarking aligns with the report’s recommendations and offers a practical solution for universities to address the challenges outlined by UUK. We also provide detail behind the approach taken by universities in New Zealand (case study referenced on page 48 of the UUK report), as well as exploring insights from other collaborative approaches being adopted in post-16 education to inform organisational efficiencies and support transformation programmes.  

Adopting a common approach to assessing efficiency and benchmarking costs – Etio’s response to the UUK report 

One of the report’s key recommendations is the need for a standardised approach to cost benchmarking across the sector. Etio’s model ensures accurate like-for-like comparisons, regardless of organisational differences. By providing consistent and comprehensive benchmarks, institutions can assess their financial and operational performance relative to sector norms and identify areas of over- or under-spend. This promotes alignment and shared understanding of best practices, enabling meaningful collaboration. In this way, the model is applicable and relevant to all universities, from the smallest bespoke to the largest research-intensive institutions. The approach itself has evolved in recent years to be low-burden on universities, our team conducting all the heavy-lifting with regards to data validation, model application, and results verification.  

Identifying Efficiency Opportunities

The financial and operational metrics produced offer granular insights into every aspect of university operations. Through this depth of analysis and the support of our team, institutions can pinpoint inefficiencies and opportunities for cost-saving measures. Without extensive internal input, universities can identify areas where staffing, procurement, or infrastructure costs exceed sector benchmarks, enabling targeted interventions to optimise spending. Added to this, we highlight opportunities where universities can diversify income, scale profitable activities, and reduce exposure to financial shocks - addressing the vulnerabilities outlined in UUK’s sector risk analysis. 

Having an objective basis for decision-making aids difficult internal conversations when it comes to implementing resourcing decisions. 

Supporting Leadership and Governance in Transformation

Effective transformation requires strong leadership and governance, guided by reliable data. Evidence-based insights highlight institutional strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities. These insights equip leaders to make informed decisions, set strategic priorities, and measure progress against sector-wide standards. 

Improving Research and Professional Services Sustainability

The UUK report emphasises underfunding in research and professional services as a significant risk. Benchmarking identifies gaps between actual costs and sector benchmarks, pinpointing operational differences and enabling universities to develop strategies for improved cost recovery and resource allocation. By addressing these gaps, institutions can ensure the sustainability of vital research and professional services. 

Facilitating Collaboration and Shared Services

Collaboration is central to achieving sector-wide transformation. Viewing all universities through the same lens makes it easier to identify common challenges and opportunities for joint initiatives, such as shared procurement or back-office functions. Benchmarking data provides the evidence base to form consortia and advocate for shared services, driving efficiencies across the sector. 

Benchmarking in New Zealand universities (as referenced in the Transformation and Efficiency Taskforce report, p48.) 

The UUK report references NZBT+ (New Zealand Benchmarking Tool Plus) as an example of a robust, sector-wide benchmarking tool addressing calls for more collaborative and evidence-based approaches to efficiency in higher education. NZBT+ is designed to enable tertiary education institutions to systematically compare their financial and educational performance over time and against peers, supporting sector-wide improvement. 

Etio deliver the NZBT+ benchmarking tool to the New Zealand tertiary education sector via our long-standing contract with the Tertiary Education Commission. Our approach provides independently validated, objective data, ensuring like-for-like comparisons across institutions, addressing the challenge of inconsistent data allocation and reporting, which often hinders sector-wide efficiency efforts. The collaborative approach helps institutions understand cost differences and operational efficiencies, supporting sector-wide improvement. 

“One of the most the powerful things with benchmarking is finding out who the comparator institutions are and asking them what they're doing differently. We’re basically 80% the same, so it's asking the question, ‘What levers are you pulling on to get that result?’” 

 - Anthony Robertson, University of Waikato Finance Director [Full article] 

Senior managers and governing councils use NZBT+ to inform budget decisions, support business cases, and identify cost-saving opportunities, directly linking benchmarking to actionable efficiency gains. Benchmarking is embedded as a core part of sector governance and continuous improvement. By providing a shared, independent, and detailed measurement framework, NZBT+ exemplifies the kind of robust and collaborative benchmarking approach the UUK report recommends for driving efficiency, transparency, and transformation across the higher education sector.  

Performance Benchmarking as the objective basis for meaningful collaboration 

Benchmarking is essential to identify where collaboration and shared services can deliver the greatest impact. We’ve seen an increased appetite in collaborative benchmarking partnerships in recent years as education providers look to identify best practices, spot collaboration opportunities, and measure the impact of shared initiatives. New Zealand universities may set the standard in terms of sector-wide performance benchmarking initiatives, but closer to home, we have been working with England’s largest college groups for several years on a similar model, and we are seeing growing appetite in Scotland as we continue to build a collaborative group there too. The aims of the long-term project were to establish a benchmarking peer group with facilitated collaboration, to further increase the value of the exercise. Each college group receives not only its own independent financial benchmarking results compared against several anonymised aggregated comparisons, but also aggregated results for the peer group and individually named institution comparisons as part of a collaborative reporting process. This is supported by a facilitated collective open discussion of project outcomes to identify what learning and best practice each group can take away from the others. Importantly, the approach marks a step-change, overcoming barriers to collaboration through objective evidence-based comparison and debate.   

In summary 

Etio (formerly Tribal’s Education Services division) delivers comprehensive, validated, and actionable benchmarking data, empowering universities to make informed decisions and demonstrate transparency to stakeholders, equipping university leaders with the insights and evidence needed to drive transformation, support governance, and build consensus for change. 

We have already partnered with over 80% of UK universities and are ready to help deliver on the UUK report’s recommendations in shaping a more sustainable, collaborative future. Our Performance Benchmarking tools support the transformation and efficiency agenda set out in the UUK report, providing a powerful solution to supporting long-term financial sustainability for universities, higher education providers, and the higher education sector. 

We are inviting discussion with UK university leaders seeking to act upon the recommendations of the UUK report. If you would like to hear more about how Financial Benchmarking responds directly to the recommendations laid out in the report, let us know your priority area(s) of interest below, and a member of the team will be in touch.