South Bank College, formerly Lambeth College, merged into the London South Bank University Group in February 2019. Facing significant financial challenges at that time, the leadership team—led by Executive Principal Fiona Morey—made benchmarking a central component of its financial planning and strategic decision-making cycles. In this article, we hear from Fiona how, since the 2019/20 academic year, South Bank College has used Etio’s external benchmarking tools to gain critical comparative insights and ensure robust governance.
The Value of Benchmarking
For senior finance professionals, benchmarking is an increasingly popular device for “sense-checking” internal data and aligning resource allocation with sector standards. At South Bank College, benchmarking has provided value in three key areas:
1. Objective Reflection and Direction
From the outset, benchmarking gave South Bank Colleges “a really good understanding of the FE financial context,” says Fiona. She emphasises that, even for those with considerable sector experience, “it’s always really useful to benchmark against other colleges, and particularly good to have that London context and to see financial challenges with the college. It’s also important to sense-check your own thinking through benchmarking in order to see other things pulled out that you haven’t spotted through your own analysis.”
The regular benchmarking exercises offer both a rear-view mirror for reviewing the past year and a spotlight for highlighting future priorities. “It doesn’t give you the answer as such; it tells you where to ask the questions. The data is really interesting and insightful, and inevitably leads you to ask more detailed questions to really understand at a very local level where you sit against benchmark, and what it is that this individual college needs to really focus on. We’ve used the data with our heads to really drill-down and work out where we need to make savings or where indeed you might be under investing.”
“It really informs our future plans because it directs us to the areas that we want to review, how we're delivering that service and whether it's a cost-effective delivery model. It has really helped us with looking at our curriculum planning, and helped us to see clearly the ratio of costs in professional services as well as our teaching financial productivity.”
2. Consistent Methodology and Assurance
One challenge for college finance professionals is the lack of standardized comparability across publicly available data. Fiona strongly values Etio’s external benchmarking for the confidence it provides:
“The assurance you get from using Etio is that you know the methodology is being applied consistently across colleges. For example, you can look at DfE returns, you can look at annual accounts…but everybody will have recorded things in slightly different ways. There’ll be nuances…But with the Etio method, you know that everything has gone in at the consistent level, and it’s that consistency across benchmarking with other colleges that’s really, really valuable.”
3. Actionable Insights and Sustainable Improvement
Fiona and her team use each benchmarking iteration to identify both strengths and areas for development. For example, the most recent Etio report “highlighted a couple of key areas which we’ve addressed,” says Fiona. “We’ve been able to reshape some of our services to bring us much more in line with other FE colleges in London.”
The benchmarking also recognizes the college’s unique circumstances, such as its high proportion of high-needs students, a nuance which, as Fiona notes, “has a nuanced impact and I really appreciate the way that it has drawn that out and then given us comparisons with other high-percentage high-needs colleges as well as benchmarking against other London colleges.”
The impact has been substantial:
“What we’ve done is to be able to support the development of a sustainable college in South London - a college that was previously making significant losses and didn’t have a viable future. We’ve now secured a viable future for the college and for our students in South London. We have really grown the number of students that we engage with, and our mission is very much about inclusion and diversity. So obviously, having students accessing education is really what it’s all about.”
Governance, Openness, and Culture
Benchmarking results are not just a tool for senior management but also provide independent validation for governors, especially during times of rapid transformation:
“Etio benchmarking has provided very clear guidance to governors that we are moving in the right direction, that we’ve made significant changes to our operating model and our budget processes. So, we can clearly demonstrate that journey as being made, and because Etio is independent, it gives governors that sense of validation—it’s not just coming from the executive team.”
There is a growing movement in UK Further (and Higher) Education to use the independent nature of benchmarking as an objective evidence-base to facilitate collaboration and share best practice amongst institutions. Fiona welcomes the trend toward transparency and sharing of benchmarking results within the sector. “I think everybody in the sector is very open to sharing good practice and ideas…generally Principals are very happy to have that dialogue and engagement and understand some of the nuances and get behind some of the variations.”
Investment and Affordability
One perceived barrier to colleges engaging in benchmarking is affordability, but Fiona is clear that the investment is justified.
“Personally, I think I couldn’t not do it because I think it really directs you to where you can be more aligned with the sector, where you can drive efficiencies and make savings. On the whole, I quite like it when I get the Etio report and I think, ‘Oh yeah, I know that – it validates what I knew.’ But there’s always something that I haven’t seen – an area I need to understand why we’re out of kilter. And that leads to some really interesting, useful discussions, and decisions that are made in a really conscious way.”
Conclusion
South Bank College’s experience shows that when embedded in the annual strategic cycle, and combined with transparent dialogue and a willingness to act, Etio’s benchmarking becomes a key driver of financial health, strategic clarity, and educational mission.
Key Takeaways for Finance Leaders