Council celebrate double success at prestigious awards

North Ayrshire Council was celebrating a double success after landing two awards at a prestigious event.

As well as being named winner of Best Performer in the Roads, Highways and Winter Maintenance at the Association for Public Service Excellence (APSE) awards, the local authority were also celebrating after winning Most Improved Performer in the Refuse Collection category

As well as the two awards, teams were also finalists in three other categories:

• Best Performer in Building Maintenance
• Best Performer in Refuse Collection
• Most Improved Performer in Street Cleaning

It was a hugely successful evening in Blackpool and underlined some sector-leading work being carried out across a range of services and teams.

APSE is the largest voluntary public sector benchmarking service across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Each year APSE asks councils across the UK to submit benchmarking information to assess value for money and performance in different service award categories. Performance Networks then assess and audits overall performance of those local authorities before announcing the ‘Best’ and ‘Most Improved’ performers in the country.

The Best Performer for Roads, Highways and Winter Maintenance is based on a number of indicators, UK wide, such as condition, inspection, maintenance, investment and winter maintenance. This covers different assets such as carriageways, footways, structures and traffic signals.

The annual APSE Refuse Collection benchmarking compares member UK councils with regards to a range of performance indicators including: investment in waste and recycling services, employee and transport costs and missed bin collections

“Well done to all our finalists and a special congratulations to the teams who were winners on the night. It is a fantastic achievement for both of them and testament to the hard work being carried out on a daily basis."

Well done to all our finalists and a special congratulations to the teams who were winners on the night. It is a fantastic achievement for both of them and testament to the hard work being carried out on a daily basis.

“The APSE awards are very much the pinnacle for the public sector as you are competing against councils from across the UK and to win two awards is fantastic and both teams, along with our other finalists, should be very proud. There is lots of great work being carried out at North Ayrshire Council so it is great that we are being recognised at this national level.”

Published December 11, 2025