Exeter University's Vice-Chancellor & Chief Executive, Professor Sir Steve Smith, saw in-depth intelligence on Exeter performance compared with its competitors as an absolute priority right from his arrival in the University in 2002. He wanted Exeter to understand very clearly what the University's strategic strengths and weaknesses at that time were, relative to competitor universities, as a foundation to determining Exeter's future.

Benchmarking at Exeter is not a means to imitate what others have done, it is an important source of the intelligence informing University planning. As the HESA phase 1 report Benchmarking to improve efficiency says, it is part of a strategic thought process, not an end in itself.

For Exeter, evaluating performance in comparison with other institutions gave four conditions important for long-term success:

• A better understanding of what could be achieved, discipline by discipline - confirming where performance had to be improved if the University were to reach its ambitions - in short, guiding the University on where to concentrate its efforts
• Supporting distinctive contributions - benchmarking can lead to the risk of imposing identikit solutions onto quite diverse entities - more 'granular' benchmarking and discussion leads to supporting distinctive contributions by College/discipline, provided they add up to overall strategic sense
• A well-informed competitive culture - clarity on how well we are doing compared to others helps motivate staff efforts to do their best and outperform their competitors
• A straightforward way of tracking and communicating progress - in absolute terms to the University's own previous best, and comparing the University's trajectory to the competition

Universities have such breadth of interests and operations that it can prove difficult to focus on what matters most. The process to confirm what matters most, and how to measure performance in those areas has been for Exeter crucial to the delivery of the University's strategy. Exeter has ten Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), connecting to the core strategies, and these KPIs have remained largely unchanged over the past five years.

The selection of benchmark comparators can be contentious, but Exeter selected those seen as competing in the range 5-15 in UK league tables (taking these as a rough proxy for overall reputation and performance). A selection, 12 in all, from Russell Group and 94 Group universities forms the University's competitor group.

Again, this peer group is largely unchanged to help maintain comparisons over time and indeed to keep the overhead down.

League tables do form an important part of the University's benchmarking approach, and do have a strong external influence, but it is the University's own KPIs that are the primary concern for Council, the Vice-Chancellor and his Executive Group, and the University's academic Colleges.

There are certain 'technical basics' which Exeter has seen as important for effective benchmarking:

• Ensuring corporate IT systems are used in Colleges as well as centrally
• Attention to improving data quality (let's talk about the improvement agenda, not whether the data are right)
• High calibre data analysts
• Ensuring that the right people have the right data at the right time
• Attractive and intuitive presentation styles (and knowing too many 'bells and whistles' can detract)

Benchmarking data did not suddenly yield the answers to everything. Establishing how far the University is above (or below), upper quartiles and medians is a useful first insight. Usually, however, the intelligence from benchmarking comes not direct from the initial data - the main purpose of the data is to provoke the probing and questioning of what the University (and its competitors) is doing. It is through this discursive stage where the University sees genuinely rich intelligence being gleaned, and strategic objectives considered and established.

Focusing on culture, a key factor for Exeter has been that staff feel that performance matters, helped by a tie between recognition and reward and the University's performance: staff gain a real share in the University's success. Most of all performance matters because it is seen as a source of pride for academic and professional services staff to work in a very well-regarded university.