APSE Performance Networks is the largest voluntary local government benchmarking service in the UK, run by the Association for Public Service Excellence, through which more than 170 councils and other public bodies compare cost and performance data for frontline services including building cleaning and street cleansing. Cleaning contractors cannot join APSE themselves - membership is for local authorities and public bodies - but understanding how your council client benchmarks its own cleaning service helps you write a more credible, better-priced tender response.
What is APSE?
APSE (the Association for Public Service Excellence) is a not-for-profit association working with more than 300 councils across the UK to support the delivery of frontline public services - waste and refuse collection, parks and environmental services, cemeteries and crematoria, environmental health, leisure, school meals, housing and building maintenance, and cleaning.
Alongside knowledge-sharing, advisory support, training and its APSE Solutions consultancy arm, APSE's best-known offer is Performance Networks - its benchmarking service for member councils.
What is APSE Performance Networks benchmarking?
APSE Performance Networks describes itself as the largest voluntary public sector benchmarking service in the UK, with more than 170 local authorities and other public bodies across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland taking part. It has collected performance data on key indicators for frontline service areas since 1999, across around 15-17 specialist service areas including building cleaning, street cleansing and building maintenance.
Participating councils submit cost and performance data each year and, in return, receive personalised performance indicator reports, comparative data on other participating councils, direction-of-travel and trend analysis, and access to peer support, training and specialist benchmarking meetings run by APSE advisors.
How councils use benchmarking data for cleaning services
A council in the Performance Networks scheme can see how its cleaning cost per unit, staffing levels and reported quality compare with other authorities of a similar type and size. That evidence base is commonly used to support service reviews, to identify where a cleaning service is an outlier on cost or performance, and to inform decisions on service redesign, specification changes, or whether to retain a service in-house or go out to tender.
Where a council references its own performance review, scrutiny committee report, or Performance Networks award case study in the background section of a tender document, that is a genuine signal of what the authority sees as its current cost and performance position - and therefore what it will be looking for a new contractor to improve on.
Can a cleaning contractor join APSE or access this data directly?
No. APSE membership and Performance Networks participation are for local authorities and other public bodies, not private contractors - a bidder cannot join APSE or claim APSE membership or accreditation for their own company. Do not present "APSE membership" or an "APSE benchmark score" as something your business holds; it is not a contractor accreditation and claiming it would misrepresent the scheme.
What is publicly available is the general description of the scheme on apse.org.uk, published APSE research and awards case studies, and - separately - whatever performance or scrutiny reporting an individual council chooses to publish about its own services. Use those genuinely public sources, not an assumed insider position.
What this means for your tender response
If a council's tender documents or background papers reference a service review, a cost-per-square-metre benchmark, or a stated ambition (for example, reducing cleaning cost per square metre or improving satisfaction scores), respond directly to that evidence rather than a generic methodology. Show that your proposed staffing model, frequency schedule and quality audit approach are designed around the specific standard the authority says it wants to hit.
Where no benchmarking detail is published, ask a clarification question referencing the specification rather than guessing - and keep your own cost-per-square-metre and output data ready so you can justify your pricing against sector norms if challenged as part of an abnormally low tender check.
APSE Performance Networks - selected service areas
| Service area | Relevance to cleaning contractors |
|---|---|
| Building cleaning | Directly benchmarks the service you are likely bidding for |
| Street cleansing | Relevant where a cleaning contract sits alongside grounds/street services |
| Building maintenance | Often bundled with cleaning in soft FM and facilities contracts |
| Environmental health | Can share KPIs with cleaning in combined public health contracts |