Measuring performance is an important requirement for any organisation whether at national or local level. NABMA has been measuring performance of the markets industry for almost twenty years through a series of national surveys and this has helped us argue the case for markets with government and other national bodies.

At the same time NABMA has encouraged members to take part in benchmarking to view the performance of local Markets against what is happening in other Markets across the country. We are fortunate in partnering APSE in this work and in recent years we were delighted that APSE included Markets in the portfolio of local authority services that they officially recognised for benchmarking purposes.

Sadly benchmarking, using APSE, has not been the success we envisaged and therefore we have decided to pursue an alternative model which we hope will inspire more enthusiasm and support from our members.

This launch of the NABMA Performance Network in 2024 follows consultation with a group of senior market officers and listening to some of the comments of members who felt unable to engage with APSE benchmarking.

NABMA is very grateful to EDGE IT Systems Ltd, a NABMA sponsor, who have been of enormous help in developing the software of the NABMA Performance Network. We are also indebted to APSE who are willing to support the new arrangements and help with analysis of the data produced.

Hopefully the revised framework will encourage members to take part. We are hoping for a minimum of 100 participants in the first year.