NBS Options - what is involved

Reports

The NBS anaylsis analyse the completed questionnaires together with the financial and catchment area data and provide two reports for each client participating in the service.

The first report is general guidance on interpretation of Performance Indicators, families and benchmarks.

The second report is for facility specific interpretation section, which summarises and comments on the performance of the centre relative to national benchmarks. The second report is one of three types: standard, efficiency or effectiveness.

Standard NBS

This service involves individual centres undertaking:

• a user survey
• a financial return

In addition, catchment area data for each facility is provided from the Census by the University of Edinburgh.

User survey

Each centre will need to achieve at least 350 completed user survey questionnaires - typically over a nine day period (including two weekends).

A standard questionnaire is used (copies are provided) which captures key information such as:

• usage patterns (frequency of use, main activity)
• travel patterns (postcode, mode of transport, length of journey)
• respondent profile (gender, age, employment status, ethnicity, NS-SEC)
• customer satisfaction with, and perceived importance of various service attributes (access, availability of facilities, quality of facilities/services, cleanliness, value for money.

Note: this data can be captured either by your own on-site team or an external agency. Full survey administration & data collection.

Financial return

Each centre will also need to provide a financial return which captures key information such as:

• facilities included
• size of the facility
• total annual attendances
• total annual income
• total annual expenditure.

NBS Standard Report

This report presents and analyses the performance of the centre with respect to four performance dimensions: access by specific groups of users; utilisation of the centre as a whole; finances of a centre; and customer satisfaction of the centre. It requires the client to organise a survey of their centre's customers over typically a nine day period of normal use; and supply facility and financial details in a financial return to the NBS analysts. In the report, the centre's performance across an array of indicators is compared with similar types of facilities nationally. In the case of customer satisfaction there are additional analyses, in particular comparing customers' satisfaction scores with their importance scores for a set of service attributes. The report identifies the catchment area that the centre should be servicing, according to a national model. It also presents all the results from the centres' user survey.

Efficiency NBS

Each centre will need to provide a financial return which captures key information such as:

• facilities included
• size of facility
• total annual attendances
• total annual income
• total annual expenditure

NBS efficiency report

The efficiency report consists of reporting finance and utilisation performance relative to national benchmarks. This efficiency report only requires centres' financial returns; it does not need the user survey. Because of this, it is considerably cheaper than the standard NBS report. The efficiency benchmark comparisons are made with the similar types of families as in the standard report (i.e, facility types, location, size and management type). The report also identifies the catchment area that the centre is servicing.

Effectiveness Report

Each centre will need to provide a management return which captures key information such as:

• facilities included
• size of the facility
• total annual attendances

NBS effectiveness report

This report reports on customers-i.e, access to the centre by diffferent customer groups, and customers satisfaction and importance scores and comparisons. It requires the client to organise a user survey at their centre. Clients will also be requested to submit a management return which identifies the basic features of the centre (e.g, facility size, managemnet organisation, attendance), but not financial details. The report identifies customer access and satisfaction as well as centre utilisation relative to national benchmarks, it identifies the catchment area which the centre should be servicing, and reports all the results of the user survey.

Costs

Cost per centre for the data analysis and report of findings and interpretation by Sheffield Hallam University - £850 + VAT (standard), £300 + VAT (efficiency), £670 + VAT (effectiveness). Discounts are available for any orders of five centres or more.

Our optional services can assist you to collect and interpret the data.