Dover District 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. Dover recycled 43.3% of household waste in 2024-25 — above the England average of 42.0%, 6th of the 13 Kent waste-collection authorities — with residual waste of 404.8kg per household vs 513.3kg nationally. Attribution: Labour administration (Kevin Mills) — majority to January 2025, minority for the final weeks of the period.

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: no investigations were completed (so no uphold rate exists for the year) and the single compliance case due was met on time; 2024-25: 1 upheld of 3 investigations (vs a 66% district uphold average that year), with compliance met. Consistently low Ombudsman volume. Attribution: Labour minority administration (Kevin Mills) 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%. Dover is the only Kent council under statutory recommendations from its external auditor (issued 17 January 2025, on financial management/performance information and governance & oversight), with financial sustainability and governance both rated significant weaknesses (Red) and disclaimed opinions for 2023-24 and 2024-25 that Grant Thornton says could not have been unqualified even without the national backstop. Countervailing strengths: the 2025/26 revenue outturn was favourable (£400k surplus vs a £6k budgeted surplus, after a £776k deficit in 2024-25) and total usable reserves are substantial at £92.8m — but the General Fund balance itself is thin at £1.5m and the medium-term plan relies on £2m of unidentified savings. The capital outturn report does not summarise a headline delivery variance (£43m invested; one prudential indicator breached), so that component is excluded and the rest re-weighted. Council tax: Band D £227.34, 8th-highest of the 12 Kent districts; 5-yr CAGR 2.89% vs 2.64% nationally. Attribution: Labour administration (Kevin Mills; majority to January 2025, minority since) — the statutory recommendations were issued during its tenure.

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. The most complete transparency package in Kent: monthly £250+ spending current to March 2026 with fifteen years of archive, the only genuine paginated FOI disclosure log among the Kent districts, a contracts register (Kent Business Portal), councillor allowances, senior pay and trade-union time, and a dedicated transparency & open-data section. Attribution: audit conducted under the Labour minority administration (Kevin Mills).

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. 91.7% of major applications (60 decisions) and 89.5% of non-majors decided in time — around the England averages — with NO major decision overturned at appeal in the 24-month quality window (0.0% vs 3.1% for England). Attribution: Labour administration (Kevin Mills) throughout the April 2024 – March 2026 window (majority to January 2025, minority since).

as of 2026-07-02 · source

Trust score: 1 judged pledges + 3 categorised public issues, averaged.

as of 2026-09-29

View full pledge tracker →