Scottish Further Education Funding Council: A ... - Audit Scotland

24Exhibit 14Examples of shared information with other funding organisations• Annual meeting with the Learning Skills Council (LSC) to discuss financial health monitoring, governance andaccountability arrangements.• Sharing the experience of developing the Funding Council’s student and staff performance indicators withthe college sector in Northern Ireland, who also have observership on the Funding Council, facilitating theexchange of relevant ideas.• Sharing of the development of the cost benchmarking methodology with Education and Learning Wales.• Participation in the UK-wide Estates Management Statistics Initiative (eMandate).• Shared work with the LSC around the use of IT.• Involvement with the UK Skills Councils.• Membership of the LSC technical group.Source: SFEFCperformance with other fundingcouncils but because of differencesin coverage, structure and fundingapproaches significant benchmarkinghas proved difficult. The FundingCouncil intends to build on itscost benchmarking exercise toconsider further the opportunitiesfor the benchmarking of colleges’performance across the UK. It alsointends to consider how the resultsof HMIE reviews can be comparedwith equivalent results in England.The Review of Scotland’s Collegeswill include research into comparisonswith colleges in other countries.4.22 The Funding Council maintainsa close working relationship with itssister organisations including sharingcopies of all circular letters andattendance at board meetings. Thisenables the Funding Council to shareand consider existing and emergingpolicies and strategies. Exhibit 14gives some examples of this typeof comparison.