What is performance benchmarking?
Performance benchmarking means comparison of performance on a common set of rural sanitation indicators, based on existing data and/or over time. The ultimate goal is to motivate improvement in quality and performance.
Top Why is performance benchmarking needed in the social sector?
Unlike firms operating in competitive environments, organizations operating the social sector are driven by the agenda of public good and enjoy monopolistic environments where there is no scope for direct competition. Therefore, performance benchmarking offers a tool to compare performance with peers on an objective basis and this comparison can serve as a motivation to improve service delivery.
Top
What is the relevance of Performance benchmarking in the context of Total Sanitation Campaign?
Performance benchmarking builds upon the monitoring system of the Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC) and Nirmal Gram Puraskar (NGP) in the following ways :
. Benchmarking is based on a logic chain which links upstream inputs and processes with downstream results. It combines inputs, outputs, processes and outcomes which are tracked on a discrete basis by different sources such as the TSC and NGP online monitoring systems and other independent surveys to score and compare performance.
. Benchmarking takes information on State and district indicators which is available in alphabetical order and ranks them based on performance. Results are divided into color coded performance bands which enables project managers and policymakers to understand comparative performance of States and Districts at a glance.
. In the rural sanitation sector, there has been a shift from toilet construction to focusing on behavior change outcomes. Performance benchmarking recognizes this and therefore the scoring pattern is weighted in favor of sector outcomes and linked to national sector goals. Top
Why compare performance when Districts and States face different challenges and circumstances?
Although Districts and States undoubtedly face different challenges and circumstances, to some extent these are limited by the common programmatic framework of the Total Sanitation Campaign which seeks to eradicate the traditional habit of open defecation and achieve total sanitation in rural areas by 2012. Under the common framework of the TSC, Districts and States perform similar activities, yet the results/performance of Districts and States differs. This difference arises because they choose their own process for doing similar tasks. Comparing performance of Districts and States on rural sanitation provides a way to understand which process has yielded results in terms of progress achieved and trends in trends in performance over time. Once we have this overview, we can get to the circumstances that underlie the story conveyed by the performance benchmarking.
Top
Are there any other examples of performance benchmarking in sanitation and related sectors?
While this website only compares State and district performance on rural sanitation within India, it is not uncommon to undertake comparisons of performance of water and sanitation service providers located in different geographical contexts. For example,

1) In Indonesia, performance of local governments on rural sanitation is among the indicators used by a prestigious award for good governance administered by the country’s largest media network.

2) In Uganda, performance benchmarking of rural districts on sanitation was included in the Joint Sector Review, an annual meeting of key sector stakeholders called to review performance and plan for the future.

3) The Ministry of Urban Development, Government of India recently concluded a Rating of Cities which compared nearly 500 cities across India in terms of their performance on sanitation.

4) The IB-NET (International Benchmarking Network for Water and Sanitation Utilities) an initiative to encourage water and sanitation utilities to compile and share a set of core cost and performance indicators and is the world’s largest database for water and sanitation utilities performance data.

5) The British regulator Ofwat undertakes international comparisons with utilities in Australia, the Netherlands, Canada and the United States, and having started with some skepticism, this international comparison exercise is now considered important. ADERASA in Latin America, SEAWUN in South East Asia and Water Utility Partnership in Africa are embarking on an international performance comparability program to provide better information to regulators and policy-makers. Therefore, while performance benchmarking may seem novel in the context of the rural sanitation sector in India, it is actually a well established practice in the water and sanitation sector. Top
How does the process of performance benchmarking work?
Performance benchmarking of States and Districts on rural sanitation is a simple 4 step process: Top
How are indicators selected?
Performance benchmarking simplifies performance measurement. Taking a District or State as the unit of measurement, it classifies the steps taken by governments to achieve rural sanitation goals into a logic chain of input, output, process and outcome. Inputs represent investments in service delivery, process looks into how investments are translated into downstream results, outputs are the direct result of investment in the sector and outcomes are a measure of enabling conditions required to achieve final effects such as reduced diarrheal disease. This logic chain represents a hypothesis of the cause and effect sequence of steps required to achieve sanitation outcomes. In this way, a total of 9 key indicators have been selected for the performance benchmarking:

Table: Performance benchmarking Indicators

#	Indicator	Type
1	% TSC Budget Spent	Input
2	% Individual Household Latrines (IHHL) Construction Target Achieved	Output
3	% School Sanitation Target Achieved	Output
4	Financial Efficiency (Average Expenditure per NGP Panchayat)	Process
5	Average Population per GP	Process
6	Success Rate of NGP Applications	Process
7	Number of NGP won	Outcome
8	% of NGP won	Outcome
9	% Toilet Usage	Outcome

Top
How are scores assigned to different indicators?
Each indicator is assigned a weighted score which specifies the maximum and minimum range of marks. Weights are assigned in such a way that outcomes score highest and maximum score is capped at 100.

Scoring for Districts within each State of India process
	Input	Output		Process			Outcome
INDICATORS	% TSC Budget Spent	%HH San Target Achieved	% School San Target Achieved	Avg Population per GP	Financial Efficiency	NGP Success Rate	# of NGP won	% NGP won	% HH Toilets used	OVERALL SCORE
Max score	5	10	10	10	10	10	15	10	20	100
Superior	>=50%-5	>90% - 10	>80%-10	>15001 pop.-10	Ist Rank district-10	>=75% - 10	301gp>= - 15	>=31% - 10	>=75% - 20	>=75
Good	>=30,<50% -3	60-89% - 8	50-79% - 8	7501 – 15000 - 7	IInd Rank district-7	>=50,<75% - 7	151 - 300gp –10	>=21,<31% - 8	>=50,<75% - 15	>=50,<75
Improving	>=1,<30% - 1	30-49% - 5	30-59% - 5	5001 - 7500 pop - 5	Third ranked district - 5	>=25,<50% - 5	51 - 150gp  - 5	>=11,<21% - 5	>=25,<50% - 12	>=25,<50
Weak	<1% - 0	<=29% - 0	< 29% - 1	< 5000 - 0	IV ranked district - 3	< 25% -0	< 51gp – 3	>=1,<11% - 2	>=10,<25% - 5	<25
Scoring for all States of India
* For Scoring of States on Financial Efficiency, the top 3 states score 10; 4th-7th ranked states score 7; 8th -10th ranked states score 4; rest of the states score 0
** For Scoring of States on # of NGP won, the scoring slabs are as follows: 3001+ GPs score 15; 1501 - 3000 GPs score10; 501 - 1500 GPs score 5; 1 - 500 score 3

How are the results of the performance benchmarking presented?
Individual indicator scores are added under each factor to arrive at a cumulative performance score. Based on the score achieved, a district or state is assigned to a performance band, as shown below. The scores are presented as a table, graph or a map showing district/state performance relative to each other.

>=0, <25	>=25, <50	>=50, <75	>=75
Weak	Improving	good	Superior

Top
How can results be used?
Performance benchmarking provides a tool to compare across time periods, compare with peers and also track on a stand-alone basis. It can also be used to compare performance by a nodal agency, which should typically be one level above the one that is being benchmarked. Therefore, if districts are being benchmarked the nodal agency is at the State level and if States are being benchmarked then the nodal agency is at the national level. It can therefore provide an evidence base for programmatic and policy improvements and allocation of resources. It can help to identify best practices for replication as well as areas for improvement. Top

Where is the data sourced from? How frequently is it updated?
The performance benchmarking is based on data available in the public domain from different sources as shown in the table below.

Table: Sources of Performance benchmarking Data and Frequency of Update

#	Indicator	Source	Frequency of Update
1	% TSC Budget Spent	Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation, TSC Online Monitoring	Monthly
2	% IHHL Construction Target Achieved	Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation, TSC Online Monitoring	Monthly
3	% School Sanitation Target Achieved	Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation, TSC Online Monitoring	Monthly
4	Financial Efficiency (Average Expenditure per Nirmal Gram	Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation, TSC Online Monitoring	Monthly
5	Average Population per Gram Panchayat	Ministry of Panchayati Raj	Decadal Census
6	Success Rate of NGP Applications	Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation, NGP Monitoring	Annual
7	Number of NGP won	Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation, NGP Monitoring	Annual
8	% of NGP won	Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation, NGP Monitoring	Annual
9	% Rural Households Using Toilets	Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and International Institute of Population Studies, District Level Health and Facility Survey (DLHS) http://www.rchiips.org	Every 4 years (previous surveys undertaken in 2004 and 2008, next survey in 2012)

Top
Top

Performance benchmarking uses only 9 indicators … what about other indicators of performance on rural sanitation?
In addition to the 9 performance benchmarking indicators, a further 15 indicators have been selected to provide a comprehensive picture of performance of States and Districts on rural sanitation. These indicators do not have a weight or a scoring scheme and can be used for monitoring and projection purposes.

Table: Non-performance benchmarking Performance Indicators: Type, Source and Frequency of Update

#	Indicator	Type	Data Source	Frequency of Update
1	Average TSC Allocation and Exp Per District • Hardware • Software • Cumulative (hardware + software)	Input	Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation, TSC Online Monitoring	Monthly
2	Average TSC Allocation and Expenditure per type of toilet • BPL Household toilet • School toilet • Anganwadi toilet • Rural Sanitatary Mart	Input	Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation, TSC Online Monitoring	Monthly
3	% Rural Sanitary Mart/Production Center Targets Achieved	Output	Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation, TSC Online Monitoring	Monthly
4	% Solid Liquid Waste Management (SLWM) Target Achieved	Output	Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation, TSC Online Monitoring	Monthly
5	Acceleration Rate of Scaling up Household Sanitation Coverage	Process	Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation, TSC Online Monitoring and Census of India	Monthly
6	Reaching the poorest – Ratio of APL and BPL HH Coverage	Process	Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation, TSC Online Monitoring	Monthly
7	Reaching backward areas – Ratio of HH Coverage in BRGF and non-BRGF Districts (BRGF = Backward Region Growth Fund)	Process	Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation, TSC Online Monitoring	Monthly
8	Reaching drought prone areas – Ratio of HH Coverage in DPAP and non- DPAP Districts (DPAP = Drought Prone Area Program)	Process	Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation, TSC Online Monitoring and Ministry of Rural Development, Government of India	Monthly
9	Rate of return on Information, Education Communication investment – Ratio of Individual Household Latrine Coverage and IEC Expenditure	Process	Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation, TSC Online Monitoring and Census of India	Monthly
10	Progress towards Universal Sanitation Coverage	Process	Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation, TSC Online Monitoring and Census of India	Monthly

Top

Username

Password