This is a comprehensive list of our frequently asked questions - we hope everything is covered here but if you have a query that is answered below, please contact
win@southeastiep.gov.uk
When should my council or partnership use this service?
What type of benchmark is WIN’s Waste Services Benchmark?
What can WIN’s Waste Services Benchmark do for my council?
Our service is contracted out - is the benchmark still relevant to us?
Will
anyone be able to see our scores apart from us
?
Will we be able to find out how our council’s score compares with other councils?
Could we be put in touch with a council which has scored well?
How long will it take us to complete?
Who in our council should be using this service?
How can we open an account?
Will the benchmark change over time?
Is
there some
guidance on how to use the
service
?
What does the benchmark cover and which bits apply to my authority?
How did this benchmarking service come about?
When should my council or partnership use this service?
EITHER … Use it to ‘healthcheck’ aspects of your service. You do not need to complete every category, if only certain categories are relevant to your council or partnership or if you just want to look at a particular aspect of the service. And you can work through the categories in any order that you wish.
OR … If you are conducting a service review, you can use the benchmark as a preliminary self-assessment. Self assessments used to form part of the process councils went through before they underwent ‘best value’ inspections. This helped identify areas which needed more focus than others. Although inspections are happily a distant memory, councils did report valuing the self-assessment process, partly because it allowed them to understand what other councils were doing.
OR … if your partnership is about to review its Municipal Waste Management Strategy, you might find conducting a self-assessment useful.
What type of benchmark is WIN’s Waste Services Benchmark?
There are many different ways of benchmarking. They are not mutually exclusive, in other words they can be used alongside one another. All of them are useful to an extent – it depends what your council is trying to achieve.
General advice Councils are used to benchmarking and so there is
general benchmarking advice
available. Some councils have created their own guidance e.g. Oxfordshire County Council's
Join The Club
.
Process benchmarking A
process benchmark – such as WIN’s Waste Services Benchmark, by definition does not focus on data although it does focus on out
comes to an extent. However, the main aim of a process benchmark is to give councils a feel for what other councils have done to achieve ‘good’ or ‘excellent’ results (in the old parlance). The idea is that a process benchmark should help a council identify areas for improvement and efficiency and give a feel for how this might be achieved.
National Data is available which councils can use to compare performance for example on cost per household or recycling rate – though councils tell us that this is not on the whole particularly useful for benchmarking purposes and – like inspection – does not necessarily lead to improvement unless it is backed up with information, guidance and advice.
Benchmarking clubs such as those run by APSE or PWC provide member councils with a means of submitting data to a central point which is then collated, analysed and played back to those in the group.
Audit Commission’s Value for Money Profile
Tool is designed to support judgements about councils' effective use of resources. It allows authorities to compare overall and service costs with other ‘statistical neighbours’. This can help authorities determine if their planned spend across a range of activities is higher or lower than similar councils and then contrast this with performance levels.
Open book accounting within the partnership or with neighbouring authorities. Councils have used this to establish VFM more successfully than other data benchmarking exercises - because it provides a means of discussing the underlying factors in detail.
What can WIN’s Waste Services Benchmark do for my council?
The service provides a mechanism to identify areas for improvement and efficiency, then give councils as much advice and support as possible to deliver those improvements or efficiencies, through:
Providing advice and links
to support on delivering improvement establising an improvement team and developing a project plan
Linking to WIN's services in particular online Information, Guidance and Advice, our Documents Service and promoting and encouraging networking
Twinning councils
which may benefit from discussing common areas for improvement or learning from authorities that have already succeeded in that area.
The service is designed to be easy to use and engaging and is intended to be used by waste service managers, council officers and elected members.
Our service is contracted out - is the benchmark still relevant to us?
Yes! Practical necessity has led the benchmark to being quite generic - and officers will need to adapt the statements to their own circumstances. The benchmark assumes that, even though for many councils a significant number of issues raised in the benchmark may only be addressed by working with contractors / through contract management, officers will still need to think about the detail of these issues.
Will anyone be able to see our scores apart from us?
No – your scores are private and no other councils, individuals or organisations will be able to see your scores.
Will anyone be able to see our scores apart from us?
No – your scores are private and no other councils, individuals or organisations will be able to see your scores.
Will we be able to find out how our council’s score compares with other councils?
Yes, WIN will provide councils with information on how other councils have scored
on aggregate so that councils can get a feel for whether they are doing less well or better than other councils. We will provide information on the numbers of councils which have filled out a particular category and how many have scored ‘basic’, ‘fair’, ‘good’ or ‘excellent’.
Until a few councils have completed a category – we will not know whether we have set the bar impossibly high or far too low! We have tried to make it challenging but achievable!
Could we be put in touch with a council which has scored well?
On request, and with appropriate consent, we will put councils in touch with one another for example where one has identified a need for improvement and another has scored ‘good’ or ‘excellent’ and so may be able to help. What also might be beneficial is talking to an authority that has recently identified similar areas for improvement.
How long will it take us to complete?
This depends on how you use the toolkit. If you would just like to ‘healthcheck’ one particular aspect of the service, it might just take a few hours. If you want to conduct a service review this could take weeks and the self-assessment is likely to just form one part of that review.
The service is designed to be easy to use, engaging and flexible. You do not need to complete every part of the benchmarl, if only certain categories are relevant to your council needs. And you can work through the categories in any order that you wish.
Who in our council should be using this service?
It is intended to be used by waste service managers, council officers and elected members as you wish.
How can we open an account?
We have created a FREE account for every council and waste partnership in England. You will need to provide a ‘lead person’ email contact. The ‘lead person’ will probably want to oversee who uses the account to avoid different people scoring separately from one another. Email
win@southeastiep.gov.uk
to receive your account login details.
Will the benchmark change over time?
We want to take on feedback and suggestions from councils. WIN's Waste Services Benchmark has been developed in close consultation with local government. However, we encourage you to put forward your feedback so that we can continuously improve the service to meet the needs of local authorities - please email
win@southeastiep.gov.uk
Is there some guidance on how to use the service?
Yes – we suggest you print off this page and also our
guidance on how to use the service and have both to hand when you open your account and begin to use it.
What does the benchmark cover and which bits apply to my authority?
The benchmark has 8 sections as below. Each section contains a number of categories. For partnerships and unitary authorities all categories apply. For disposal authorities, theoretically collection section does not apply. Likewise, for collection authorities the disposal section does not apply. However, collection and disposal authorities may wish to look at all categories, even the ones which don’t apply directly to their council. Ideally, where functions are split, the benchmark scoring would be completed by the partnership.
Strategic (
KPIs and efficiencies, Data management, Partnership working, Strategy, Planning, IT)
Collection (Residual & recycling parts 1-4, Flats, HMOs and estates)
Contracting
(Procurement, Contract management)
Disposal
(Disposal – landfill diversion, Household Waste Recycling Centres, Former landfill sites
Materials (Hazardous, clinical and WEEE)
Investing in people (Training, Member support, Health and Safety)
Other Essentials (Waste composition, Enforcement, Waste prevention, Communications, Community engagement/consultation)
Other services (Trade waste, Streetscene and public space, Schedule 2)
How did this benchmarking service come about?
Ten councils and local authority waste partnerships were awarded Beacon Status for recycling and waste in 2006. Five of these Beacons worked closely with the Improvement and Development Agency (IDeA) to create a benchmark for a proposed Waste Services Peer Review. However, funds were not then available to run the Peer Review so it was decided that a CD would be made to capture all the useful information which had by then been collated.
The Waste Improvement Network then joined up with IDeA and the Beacons in 2008 and did two things
We made it an on-line service This has many advantages but key are that:
– councils can see how other councils are scoring themselves (on aggregate – we will not give out individual councils’ scores)
– we at WIN gain valuable information on where we need to provide more help and support
– we can link the service to WIN and all the improvement information on it
– we can put councils in touch with one another
– we can also update the benchmark in future relatively easily!
We updated the content and made some changes to the categories to fit in with WIN.
The categories developed by the Beacon authorities covered various service features of waste and recycling that have been identified as critical to success by the Beacon Councils. However, the categories introduced by WIN are intended to cover all the key aspects of the waste management service – and to coincide with the improvement information provided on WIN.
The councils awarded Beacon status have a proven track record and considerable experience in the effective development and delivery of Waste and Recycling services. The development of this service would not have been possible without their time and effort and we would like to take this opportunity to thank these councils for their considerable efforts.
Sector-led support The Waste Services Benchmark has been developed by local government, for local government through the National Waste Improvement Network www.win.org.uk . WIN is a national network managed through IESE and supported by Defra and CLG. IESE is the Regional Improvement and Efficiency Partnership in the South East. It holds the national lead for waste and streetscene services.