Medway 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. Medway recycled 37.2% of household waste in 2024-25 — below the England average of 42.0% and 9th of the 13 Kent waste-collection authorities — with residual waste of 588.5kg per household, well above the England average of 513.3kg. Attribution: Labour administration (Vince Maple), in office throughout the period.

as of 2026-07-02 · source

LGSCO 2025-26: 105 complaints dealt with, 25 investigations, 23 upheld — a 92% uphold rate vs the 85% unitary average AND 7.9 upheld per 100,000 residents vs the 5.6 unitary average: above the comparator on both rate and volume, and a deterioration from 2024-25 (63% uphold, 5.2 per 100k). A remedy had been provided pre-Ombudsman in 17% of upheld cases (average 13%); compliance 100%; timely compliance 76% vs 77% average. 2025-26 figures precede the LGSCO annual letters (due ~July 2026) and may be revised. Attribution: Labour administration (Vince Maple) 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: £9.8m (2.0%) net overspend on a budget that was only balanced through £28.0m of government Exceptional Financial Support (the second consecutive EFS year); 28% of the £340m capital programme delivered in-year with £242.7m carried forward, and in-year borrowing rose ~£130m — c.£50m more than budgeted; general reserves £10.0m at 31 March 2026, at the S151 officer's stated minimum (≈2% of the net budget), with earmarked reserves declassified in-year to prop them up and an auditor-projected £51m annual budget gap by 2029/30 (a CIPFA review called the position "grave"); Grant Thornton rates financial sustainability AND governance significant weaknesses (Red) and issued a disclaimer of opinion on the 2024/25 accounts. Council tax: Band D £1,934.33 is 3.8% below the shire-unitary average (£2,009.87); 5-yr CAGR 4.59% ≈ the 4.58% national unitary rate, with the 2026-27 rise at the 4.99% maximum. No Section 114 notice — forestalled by the EFS. Attribution: Labour administration (Vince Maple), 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. Medway publishes £250+ spending data current to March 2026, an online contracts register (ProContract, contracts over £5,000), councillor allowances, per-member interests registers and live committee papers. Weaknesses: the published organisation chart is dated November 2020, there is no open-data portal and no consolidated FOI disclosure log. Attribution: audit conducted under the Labour administration (Vince Maple).

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. Medway decided 98.8% of major applications (85 decisions) and 96.2% of non-majors in time over the 24 months to March 2026 — both well above the England averages — with only 1.1% of major decisions overturned at appeal vs 3.1% nationally. The strongest planning scorecard in Kent on current data. Attribution: Labour administration (Vince Maple) throughout the April 2024 – March 2026 window.

as of 2026-07-02 · source

Basis unchanged: Ofsted ILACS rated Medway children's services Good in July 2023 (uplift from Inadequate in 2019), with all four sub-judgements Good — 3.0 under the sub-judgement mapping adopted at the July 2026 refresh. Direction of travel: an April 2025 focused visit on child protection found progress but "variable… fragile" practice; a November 2025 focused visit on children in care was broadly positive (children enter care at the right time, timely decision-making, stable homes), with care-planning consistency still to embed. A short re-inspection is expected from spring 2026 and will carry four graded judgements but NO overall grade under Ofsted's April 2026 framework. The February 2024 joint Area SEND inspection finding ("inconsistent experiences and outcomes") is narrative context, not scored. Attribution: inspected July 2023, two months into the Labour (Maple) administration; the recovery from the 2019 Inadequate ran largely under the preceding Conservative administration.

as of 2026-07-02 · source

Basis unchanged: the safeguarding-relevant judgements of the July 2023 ILACS — children who need help and protection Good, impact of leaders Good (mapped 3.0 under the sub-judgement method adopted July 2026). The November 2025 focused visit (children in care) was positive on decision-making and placement stability but found the risk-assessment tool for children missing from care or at risk of exploitation "not consistently embedded"; the April 2025 child-protection visit described practice as improving but fragile. The LADO function was previously judged improved from an "erratic and ineffective" historical baseline; Ofsted continues to flag workforce turnover as a risk to sustained improvement. Re-inspection is imminent and will report graded sub-judgements only, with no overall grade. KLN's own Medway safeguarding investigation series tracks case-level concerns separately from this aggregate score. Attribution: Labour administration (Vince Maple), in office since May 2023.

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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