Northern Ireland’s department of agriculture, environment and rural affairs (DAERA) says the updated indicators would be used to monitor overall performance and cost efficiency.
In a statement DAERA said: “We want to ensure councils can continually improve so that they become more efficient and can achieve higher levels of recycling.
“If councils implemented the changes in this consultation, they would increase recycling significantly.
“The quality of the day-to-day service delivery, and the extent and quality of communication with householders are also key to increasing participation, yield and better quality of recyclables.”
Responses to the consultation can be submitted here.
Performance indicators
DAERA currently uses 15 performance indicators related to waste and recycling services.
Twelve of these are known as ‘key performance indicators’ and are derived from web-based waste monitoring system WasteDataFlow. These performance indicators include the percentage of household waste arisings sent for recycling and composting and the percentage of household waste arisings landfilled, amongst others.
DAERA also uses three so-called ‘Waste Management Indicators’ that were set out in legislation in 2015. These measure the percentage of household waste collected by councils sent for recycling, the amount of biodegradable local authority collected municipal waste landfilled, and the amount of local authority collected municipal waste arisings.
New indicators
DAERA says it is seeking views on the benefits of the current indicators or how new indicators might be delivered given the changes in waste management and recycling practices likely to occur in the near future.
Local contextual influencing factors such as deprivation and housing stock would be considered when considering councils’ recycling performance. Waste and recycling indicators could be calculated on a yield basis and aligned to household numbers in a local authority collection area to enable the effect of housing growth to be taken into account, DAERA says.
Subject to consultee views, DAERA says non-binding performance indicators could be developed for dry recyclables, food waste, garden waste, residual waste, service efficiency, cost, and satisfaction with services.
The indicators would be reviewed on a regular basis to ensure they remain relevant and are of assistance to councils in monitoring and waste management and recycling, DAERA says.
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