It's been a busy and productive year for the Yardstick benchmarking programme. Facilities benchmarking was carried out earlier this year and final results are nearly complete. New and returning members are welcome for the 2020 project year.

There is still time to join the 2020 Facilities survey project and make the most of the whole of 2020 to collect intercept or online surveys. There is no better way to measure the value of your facilities to your community than with a survey that targets your facility users.

We have also been working on a new user survey for Trails users. This is currently in use in Australia and will be available to New Zealand members in 2020.

For 2020, Yardstick members will notice some changes to the members section of the website with a complete refresh of the look and feel of survey forms and reports. We are also introducing an interactive members dashboard that will display key indicators and can easily be shared with colleagues. This will make it much easier to view, share and use key results.

Some of the interim findings from the 2019 Facilities Benchmarks report:

• A higher percentage of organisations have facility strategies or other facilities planning documents than 3 years ago.
• The use of electronic surveillance equipment has increased since 2017 but fewer organisations have a CCTV policy.
• For most pools, staff costs are higher than revenue.
• Median cost recovery for fitness centres is about three times higher than for pools, with most fitness centres achieving a negative net operating cost.
• Around a quarter of facilities have carried out accessibility audits in the last three years.

The key message is that to be able to confidently provide for the needs of current and future communities, you need to know what level of service you are currently providing, to be able to compare this against an industry standard, and to have a strategy for change. Benchmarking is the key to being able to achieve this.

For more information or contact us at www.yardstickglobal.org