National Litter and Flytipping Strategy

5 Measuring and informing success

5.1 Monitoring and Evaluation

We will monitor the scale of litter and flytipping at a national and local level and evaluate the interventions we take forward to ensure actions are effective in delivering our vision and outcomes.

We will also support ongoing research to ensure that interventions are based on the best available evidence. It is intended that strategy progress will be reviewed at the mid- point (3 years) and end of the strategy’s life (6 years) to ensure progress is being made and continues to align with wider priorities and policy.

Improved data is crucial if we want to fully understand the root causes of litter and flytipping, evaluate the success of any interventions, collaborate successfully and monitor change and get insights into key audiences and how to influence their behaviour. This includes reporting of issues by the public and communities; national reporting and monitoring by bodies with a statutory duty to clear litter and flytipping; citizen science and measuring outcomes.

This can be done by increasing the amount, consistency and quality of quantitative data collected and/or developing new tools and resources.

Progress has been made in recent years in recording local and national levels of litter through investment in Local Environmental Audit and Management System and Litter Monitoring System. Despite this, the current data does not give a full picture of local and national patterns, particularly for flytipping.

Further quantitative and additional qualitative data can be collected through citizen science. We can learn from the success of the Marine Conservation Society’s Beach Watch^[29] and Keep Scotland Beautiful’s Upstream Battle^[30]. Data has been collected for decades through Beach Watch and it has helped to influence policy such as the development of the forthcoming Deposit Return Scheme and the Scottish Government’s legislation to ban the supply and manufacture of certain single-use plastics items.

We will also take steps to maximise the contribution of research to ensure that interventions are based on the best available evidence. Research across all the themes will give valuable insight and support targeted planning and prioritisation. It will bring improvement in intervention design, delivery, communication and measurement by giving a greater understanding of audiences and motivations.

Our high level objectives to improve data and address gaps in existing research are set out in Section 3. These recognise the need to better understand the behaviours that lead to litter and flytipping as well as the scale of these issues in Scotland. In the first year of delivery we will prioritise the development of a data strategy to support the monitoring, evaluation and prioritisation of litter and flytipping prevention activity, which will inform the development of further measures to be taken forward over the lifetime of the Strategy.