Ashford Borough Council

Scored on the two DEFRA-published components — recycling rate and residual household waste, FY 2024-25 final data (England averages: 42.0% / 513.3kg per household) — with the remaining components (missed-bin reports, complaint resolution time, service consistency) pending data ingest. Ashford recycled 48.8% of household waste in 2024-25 — second-best in Kent and well above the England average of 42.0% — with residual waste of 398.6kg per household vs 513.3kg nationally. Attribution: Ashford Independents + Green minority administration (Noel Ovenden), in office since May 2023.

as of 2026-07-02 · source

Small-numbers caveat: district-tier LGSCO investigation counts are tiny (0–4 a year) and a single case can swing the uphold percentage from 0% to 100%, so this score rests on process indicators — upheld volume per 100,000 residents vs the 1.0 district average, remedies offered before the Ombudsman, and compliance with recommendations — across 2025-26 and 2024-25, never on the raw uphold percentage alone. 2025-26 figures precede the LGSCO annual letters (due ~July 2026) and may be revised. 2025-26: 3 investigations, all 3 upheld — 2.1 upheld per 100,000 residents, roughly double the 1.0 district average — though a remedy had already been offered before the Ombudsman in 1 of the 3 (33% vs the 15% average), and the council missed the agreed timescale on its single compliance case; 2024-25: no investigations completed. Attribution: Ashford Independents + Green minority administration (Noel Ovenden) throughout both years.

as of 2026-07-02 · source

Weighted across the six published components: revenue budget variance 25%, capital programme delivery 20%, reserves & Section 114 risk 20%, external auditor VfM judgement 15%, council tax positioning 10%, council tax trajectory 10%. 2025/26 outturn: £183k (0.8%) deficit on a £22.1m net budget, funded from the MTFP Risk reserve; usable General Fund reserves £40.3m (up £7.1m in year) with the unearmarked reserve on-policy at 15% of net budget; auditor: one key recommendation, on Housing Revenue Account medium-term sustainability (fully costed 30-year business plan, stock-condition data), with disclaimed opinions up to 2023-24 under the national audit backstop — the HRA (2024 self-referral to the Regulator of Social Housing) and Stodmarsh nutrient neutrality are the structural pressures. The capital-delivery variance is not stated in the outturn report, so that component is excluded and the rest re-weighted. Council tax: Band D £199.37, 2nd-lowest of the 12 Kent districts; 5-yr CAGR 2.94% vs 2.64% nationally. Attribution: Ashford Independents + Green minority administration (Noel Ovenden), in office since May 2023.

as of 2026-07-03 · source

Fixed-date website audit (2026-07-03) against the Transparency Code checklist: spending-data currency and format, contracts register, councillor allowances, interests, committee papers, senior pay, open data, FOI disclosure log. Items not individually verified this quarter are scored neutrally and flagged. A tidy transparency hub with a genuine open-data section, published FOI requests, councillor allowances, senior-pay and leadership pages, and land/TU-facility-time Code items. Weaknesses: spending is published quarterly rather than monthly (current to the January–March 2026 quarter, £250 threshold) and no contracts register was located. Attribution: audit conducted under the Ashford Independents + Green minority administration (Noel Ovenden).

as of 2026-07-03 · source

Scored against the England averages (majors in time 91.0%, non-majors 90.8%, major appeal overturns 3.1%) over the 24 months to March 2026 (speed) and June 2025 (appeal quality), from MHCLG designation-regime tables; the enforcement-trend component (15%) is pending and the three measured components are re-weighted pro rata. The national "in time" measure includes agreed extensions of time. 100% of major applications (59 decisions) and 94.8% of non-majors decided in time — both above the England averages — but 6.1% of major decisions were overturned at appeal, nearly double the 3.1% England average (small denominators are volatile; designation threshold 10%). Attribution: Ashford Independents + Green minority administration (Noel Ovenden) throughout the April 2024 – March 2026 window.

as of 2026-07-02 · source

Trust score: 3 judged pledges + 3 categorised public issues, averaged.

as of 2026-09-29

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