The role of benchmarking within the cultural reform journey of an award‐winning Australian local authority

Wollongong City Council in New South Wales, Australia, won the Australian Quality Award in 1997 and the Australian Customer Service Award in 1998, the first local council to receive such awards. This article presents a case history of the cultural reform journey of the council since 1990, in particular the role played by benchmarking within a wider quality‐oriented programme. The article traces the evolutionary nature of the reform agenda over this period and shows that benchmarking has been introduced at the council in three stages as an integral part of an evolving and maturing culture based on corporate planning, quality, and performance management: stage 1 (process mapping and improvement), stage 2 (process benchmarking), and stage 3 (cost benchmarking). The article concludes by setting out a number of lessons based on the Wollongong experience for the introduction and use of benchmarking as part of a quality‐oriented cultural change programme.