Tunbridge Wells 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. Tunbridge Wells recycled 51.4% of household waste in 2024-25 — the best rate in Kent, well above the England average of 42.0% — with the lowest residual waste in Kent at 381.6kg per household (England: 513.3kg). Attribution: Liberal Democrat administration (Ben Chapelard) — LD majority from May 2024; the opening weeks of the year under the same leader's Borough Partnership coalition.

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. The cleanest Ombudsman record in Kent: 2025-26 — 9 complaints dealt with (the lowest volume in Kent), 1 investigation completed, 0 upheld, and no recommendations due for compliance; 2024-25: no investigations completed. The small numbers preclude a higher-band claim. Attribution: Liberal Democrat majority administration (Ben Chapelard) 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%. The only unqualified ("true and fair") 2024/25 audit opinion in its data cohort, with no significant value-for-money weaknesses; usable reserves £23.4m ≈ 149% of the cost-of-services budget, though down £4.0m in the year (car-park refurbishment funding). Scored down on forecasting and delivery: the 2025/26 draft outturn came in 10.4% (£1.6m) under budget on cost of services — a large underspend the methodology penalises as poor forecasting — and £14.2m gross of capital was deferred to 2026/27 in a substantial rolling-deferral pattern. Council tax: Band D £217.10, 4th-lowest of the 12 Kent districts, and the only 2026-27 district rise set under the referendum cap (2.79%); 5-yr CAGR 2.84% vs 2.64% nationally. Attribution: Liberal Democrat majority administration (Ben Chapelard) throughout.

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. Monthly £250+ spending files are published on the council's own payments page, behind a financial-year drop-down, current to July 2026 when re-checked on 1 October 2026 and with every month back to April 2025. Councillor allowances paid are published for each year from 2014/15, an FOI disclosure log launched in April 2025 is kept up to date, and committee papers are live. Weaker items: the contracts register the council links to sits on an older procurement site and appeared out of date at the re-check (the newest Tunbridge Wells award found was from September 2025); the newest pay-policy statement found is for 2024-25; and the council's separate open-data portal has not been kept up, its newest spending dataset being for 2024-25. Corrected after a re-check on 1 October 2026: this note previously said the council's spending data was "roughly 18 months stale" and "prima facie short of the Transparency Code's quarterly minimum", that allowances data stopped at 2020-21 and that no contracts register was found, and KLN's audit recorded no FOI disclosure log. Those findings were wrong. KLN had looked only at the open-data portal and missed what the council publishes on its main website. The score has been corrected from 43 to 72. Attribution: audit conducted under the Liberal Democrat majority administration (Ben Chapelard).

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. 90.5% of major applications (74 decisions) and 95.5% of non-majors decided in time, with a low 1.9% major appeal-overturn rate vs 3.1% for England. Attribution: Liberal Democrat majority administration (Ben Chapelard) throughout the April 2024 – March 2026 window.

as of 2026-07-02 · source

Trust score: 3 categorised public issues (no scoreable pledges yet).

as of 2026-10-04

View full pledge tracker →