This is simply the number of households in the council's area, as pre-filled by Defra each quarter. It is not a performance measure at all — you would not judge a council on it — but it is the essential divisor for turning raw spending or tonnage into fair per-household comparisons, like collection cost per household. More households generally means more bins to empty and more spend, which is exactly why dividing by this number matters.
| name | households |
|---|---|
| dataset | 12-wastedataflow |
| kind | extracted |
| type | numeric |
| unit | households |
| grain | council-quarter |
| role | denominator |
| source | Waste_Collection_data_England_2024-25.csv — filter QuestionNumber == 'Q002', RowText == 'Number of Households' (also 'Dwelling Stock', 'Index of Deprivation' under Q002) |
| period | 2024-25 (quarterly; 2023-24 file also present) |
| missingness | Defra-prefilled per authority per quarter; stable across quarters. No collection/disposal caveat — household counts are per authority regardless of type. |
| score_note | Convenient prefilled denominator duplicating household counts available elsewhere. |
| peer_group | council class (district / county / unitary / metropolitan / London) — not yet scored on the leaderboard |
Number of households in the authority, prefilled by Defra in the quarterly returns. It is the denominator for per-household measures such as collection cost per household. Dwelling stock and Index of Deprivation are available under the same question if needed.