In an increasingly challenging financial climate, Scottish colleges are under pressure to maximise resources, enhance productivity, and ensure decisions are well-informed and evidence-based. Fife College has embraced Etio’s Benchmarking model, joining a collaborative group of six Scottish colleges using the comparative dataset to help tackle common challenges.
In this article, Wendy Brymer, Assistant Principal – Improvement, Insights & Brand at Fife College, highlights how the subsequent data-driven insights afforded by the partnership have enabled the college to make informed decisions, foster collaboration, and optimise resource allocation.
Data-Driven Decision Making
Etio’s Benchmarking provides institutions with a comprehensive analysis of their operations, analysing the results against sector benchmarks using a model that ensures like-for-like comparison. It reveals the cost of delivering each area of operations to gain granular insight into the cost-base. For Wendy and Fife College this comprehensive picture of its financial and operational data allowed the college to readily identify areas for improvement and make evidence-based decisions. This has been particularly valuable during a time of transformation and performance improvement at the College.
“This information that we now have at our fingertips has been great because I’ve been able to see what other colleges look like in terms of where their money’s going, what they’re spending it on, and how much they spend on certain things. That’s been really, really useful.”
The exercise has already enabled the college to make quick wins and identify significant savings, one example being how the data revealed the college had comparatively higher spend on fleet and mileage, which they have now started addressing. Elsewhere, the College has been able to identify savings in other non-pay and pay-related areas, both validating and informing decisions that the college needed to take given real-term reductions in its core funding.
Facilitating Collaboration Across Colleges
Comparing against sector benchmarks in this manner has long been proven to be an impactful approach to identifying savings, highlighting areas of inefficiency and informing restructure strategy. Historically however, the comparisons have been anonymised – participating colleges in the comparator group have not been specifically identified*. However, for Scottish colleges, that is now all changing as they lead the march on collaborating to tackle sector-wide issues together.
*Two notable exceptions are our the England Large Colleges project, and the long-standing work we conduct with the Tertiary Education Commission in New Zealand.
The six-strong group comprising Fife College, Forth Valley College, Dumfries and Galloway College, Glasgow Clyde College, Ayrshire College, and most recently, West College Scotland, have embarked on a collaborative exercise whereby they regularly meet to openly discuss their benchmarking results. This adds a crucial layer of context, peer learning, validation, and collective problem-solving to their independent benchmarking exercises.
It represents a step forward in UK further education, demonstrating the drive amongst Scottish colleges’ leaders to unlock greater value from sector benchmarking approaches in order to continuously improve the financial sustainability of their operations and deliver the best possible educational experience.
“The regular meetings with other colleges have been brilliant—just sitting down and having conversations about why our data looks different, what others are doing, and where we can learn from each other. It’s been a really good experience.”
Etio’s model provides colleges with consistent data categorisation and granular insight, meaning leaders like Wendy and her colleagues across the group have access to and comparative analysis and credible evidence, regardless of each college’s individual operations, student profile, or structure.
Wendy also explains that the collaborative group exercise has helped the college understand contextual differences - how its demographics and strategic priorities impact spending patterns – and further inform their conversations and decisions about the future structure of the college.
“We serve deprived communities and invest a lot in student experience and support. Understanding our demographic and comparing it to other colleges has been invaluable in explaining why some of our spending looks different. It’s not that any one college is right or wrong – there may be good reasons for spending variances – but there’s real value in having the benchmarking data as the basis for those conversations, and without that data the conversations wouldn’t be as rich.”
The Strategic Value of Benchmarking
Fife College is already realising the short-term benefits, but equally recognises the long-term potential of benchmarking, particularly as more colleges join the initiative, creating richer datasets and greater opportunities for collaboration.
“The data has been amazing. It confirms what we’re doing well but also highlights areas for improvement. It’s absolutely worth the investment — we couldn’t get this level of insight or comparison on our own. This is so key for making informed decisions.”
Fife College also conceives of a point in time where colleges may need to work more closely together, potentially sharing central systems and resources such as HR and student management, in order to reach even higher levels of efficiency. It is clear that collaborative benchmarking could have a role to play in this to help inform business cases, but also to inform adapting college structures.
Equally interesting, and arguably more imminent, is the prospect of integrating key performance indicators, such as student retention, outcomes, and satisfaction, into the comparative dataset so it’s not just about the resources, but more the holistic performance of the college. It is something that the group has already mooted, and would follow the example set by the New Zealand Tertiary Education Commission’s introduction of qualitative measures into the benchmarking model in order to make better strategic and financial decisions.
Next steps
Fife College’s experience demonstrates the significant potential of Etio’s Benchmarking model. By providing reliable comparative data and facilitating collaboration, the tool has helped the College to make informed decisions, optimise resources, and navigate financial challenges. The benchmarking process has fostered meaningful collaboration among Scottish colleges, creating opportunities to share best practices and learn from one another’s approaches. Such insights are especially timely as sector-wide conditions force colleges to consider their structures and maximise value from every pound spent.
As more Scottish colleges join the initiative, the sector as a whole stands to benefit from enhanced collaboration, shared learning, and a unified approach to addressing common challenges, ultimately impact the financial sustainability of the sector.
“We’re dealing with significant financial challenges as a sector, and this tool helps us see where we can make efficiencies, learn from others, and ensure we’re making decisions backed by data. I’d encourage more colleges to get involved.” – Wendy Brymer.