Benchmarking - how to empower yourselves to become leaders in animal management practices
Leigh Clement
Abstract
This paper provides the reader with an insight into the benefits to be gained from benchmarking and the pitfalls to be avoided. Performance measurement and benchmarking have become popular topics in recent years and, regardless of whether you consider this to have been a lot of overrated hype, many organisations, including local governments, have achieved significant benefits from using these tools to improve performance.
The management of performance and achievement of specified outcomes is becoming an increasingly important issue for local government. Recent years have seen rapid and unprecedented change for local governments throughout Australia. Without a doubt, the expectations of local government have intensified and community scrutiny of local government activities and performance continues to grow. There is an increasing emphasis on producing more with less or on getting more value for each dollar spent. As a result many traditional local government services, such as Municipal Pet Management, can no longer be viewed simply as a community service obligation. Councils are becoming far more 'business' orientated in today's competitive environment. With this shift in organisational culture comes increasing demands for business units within the organisation to show greater efficiencies in their service delivery. For animal management officers this means demonstrating that both the council and the community are receiving value for the money and resources invested in animal management services.
So it is that, in reviewing their current operations, many local governments are turning to the use of performance measurement and benchmarking tools.
About the author
Leigh Clement
Local Government Services
Department of Communication and Information,
Local Government and Planning
PO Box 187 Albert Street Brisbane Qld 4002
Ph. 07 3225 8680 Fx. 07 3225 8685
Email. leigh.clement@dcilgp.qld.gov.au
Leigh is a senior officer within the Local Government Financial Management Unit of Local Government Services. In her position as Project Leader - Performance Management, Leigh has been responsible for the establishment of a performance measurement system for Queensland local government. Her work has entailed the development of a suite of performance indicators for the services provided by councils, the design and implementation of a performance data collection system and reporting framework and the publication of comparative local government performance information. In addition to her developmental work, Leigh provides a facilitation service to councils, local government professional groups and other State government agencies in the establishment of performance measurement systems and benchmarking partnerships. She also holds positions on a number of local government, State and Commonwealth government advisory and steering committees relating to local government performance measurement and benchmarking.
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