Comparing our performance to other councils helps us identify where we are doing well and where we can improve.  Benchmarking is the term used to so this comparison.  We can learn about the way they are organised, their processes and policies and look at how we can implement changes to improve our performance.  this also give other councils the chance to learn from us, where we perform well.

Benchmarking helps us

• Understand how our performance compares to others  
• Understand where our performance varies with others and why  
• Seek fresh approaches to bring about improvement
• Learn from other by identifying and sharing good practice.  

Council service actively participate in benchmarking groups.  Some official groups are used for data comparisons and activities are

• The Association of Public Service Excellence (APSE)
• Scottish Local Authorities Economic Development (SLEAD)
• SCOTS (Society of Chief Officers of Transportation in Scotland)
• SOCITIM (Society for IT practitioners in the public sector)
• Local Government Benchmarking Framework (LGBF) 

The Local Government Benchmarking Framework helps Scottish councils work together to improve our use of performance information, understand the differences in performance and share good practice across a range of services.  

The Local Government Benchmarking Framework provides data that is comparable (the Improvement Service have made sure that we are using the same method to collect the data) and gives us space to learn from other councils.  

You can explore the data on the LGBF Dashboard