
Our premier parks benchmarking programme
Parks Benchmarks
The Yardstick Parks Benchmarking programme has been running for over 20 years. We have been refining and fine-tuning the programme over that time to create the best version of Parks Benchmarking possible.
The programme runs globally across Australia, New Zealand and Canada. It is a well-respected process and delivers far beyond provision, into best practice asset management and benchmarks for operational and capital costs for parks services.
Choose your approach
Our members use Yardstick in a few ways, and you can choose the approach you take to your data. You might want to:
- Track your own progress and priorities over a number of years,
- Compare yourself to other cities, municipalities and districts,
- Look for benchmark information for your strategic plans,
- Use charts and data for reporting to elected members,
- Inspire, set goals, and celebrate with your staff!
Gain knowledge of your service, improve, track your progress and celebrate your success

The Parks Benchmarking Journey
We know that parks is an essential and complex public service, and time is precious. We also know that it can be incredibly difficult to talk about the needs of our industry, the benefits it provides, and how to improve together without consistent reporting or being able to compare with similar sized populations.
Yardstick is about making it easy to track down numbers and put them into action. We view this as a repeatable journey over four stages: Know your service, Compare and Benchmark, Gain insights, Celebrate success and prioritse actions.
The Yardstick Journey is an annual cycle, completed by organisations around the world through three distinct stages, each one benefiting from the other. The cycle repeats annually, allowing you to provide annual updates and track your progress over time.

Sign up for Parks Benchmarking
Parks benchmarking covers
Access to annual reports and charts
Unlimited users
Annual audit and insights discussion
Tracking your own data over time
Comparisons and benchmark setting against your peers
Contact
Enquire about
An online demonstration of Yardstick
Find out if you have data on previous years
Support requests
About us
Learn more about Yardstick
The History of Yardstick from 2002 until now
Our Industry Partnerships
Our Team