What is Performance and how is it Measured?
By performance we mean
- how much of something we do
- how well we do it
- how much it costs
With some services it is fairly easy to answer these questions. We know how many bins we lift and how many people use our leisure centres. It is not so easy to measure a service such as economic development or community relations. Even when we get an answer, what exactly is it telling us? If we spend more on a particular service than another council, is this because we are providing a better service or because we are less efficient? Other factors can also affect the cost of a service, for example, the cost of refuse collection will be affected by whether an area is urban or rural.
What is Performance Information Used For?
Performance indicators allow us to track improvement (or otherwise) in the Council's performance year by year.
They also allow us to compare our performance with that of other councils (this is called benchmarking) but this can be difficult because of variations in service between councils.
Key Performance Indicators
The Department of the Environment has set district councils in Northern Ireland a number of national Performance Indicators for key services. These are basic measuring sticks such as the cost of the service per head of population and the level of customer satisfaction with the service. Each council submits an annual return against these indicators to the Department.
Craigavon Borough Council's performance against the key performance indicators is available to download below.
Definitions of the indicators and how they are measured are also available below.
