Kent Local News has scored all 14 of Kent’s councils on up to 12 measures, from bins to roads, and named the first winners of the Kent Council Scorecard Awards. Every council saw its scores before publication.
Declaration: Kent Local News is edited by Daniel Dabin, who is also the leader of the GB Freedom party. The Scorecard is scored from published data under a published methodology, every council receives its scores for right of reply before publication, and every score links to its source so that readers can check it.
Tunbridge Wells Borough Council has won three of the eight Kent Council Scorecard Awards, for bins, complaints handling and housing, as Kent Local News publishes the October refresh of its Kent Council Scorecard.
The refresh adds three new measures: housing and homelessness, highways, and adult social care. It also scores every council on how quickly it answers freedom of information requests, from figures the councils supplied to Kent Local News. Each score runs from 0 to 100 and is banded A to F. Scores are never added together into a single ranking, because bins, planning and finance are different services measured with different data.
Every council received an itemised notice of its new and changed scores on 2 October 2026, with a deadline of 5pm on 23 October. Canterbury City Council replied that it had no challenges or corrections. Tonbridge & Malling Borough Council asked questions, which were answered, and commented on two scores; its comments are published word for word beside them. No other council responded.
The 2026 awards
The awards go to the highest score on each measure that applies to most councils, plus the largest single improvement since the first refresh. There is no overall winner.
- Best for bins: Tunbridge Wells (72, B). It recycled 51.4% of household waste in 2024-25, the best rate in Kent and well above the England average of 42.0%, and produced the least residual waste per household. Ashford was second on 68.
- Best complaints handling: Tunbridge Wells (67, C). The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman dealt with nine complaints about the council in 2025-26, the fewest in Kent, and upheld none. The numbers are small, which is why the score stays in band C. Swale, Folkestone & Hythe and Dover shared second place on 62.
- Most open council: Ashford (92, A). Ashford answered 99.6% of freedom of information requests within the legal limit of 20 working days in 2025-26 (974 of 978), and the Information Commissioner issued no decision notices against it in three years. Sevenoaks was second on 91.
- Soundest finances: Maidstone (76, B). Its draft 2025-26 accounts show the council £709,000 under budget, with the best capital-programme delivery in Kent and usable reserves of about twice its net revenue budget. Dartford was second on 71.
- Most transparent council: Dover (83, B). Dover publishes monthly spending data with 15 years of archive and keeps a paginated log of the information it has released under freedom of information, as well as a contracts register and a transparency and open-data section. Kent County Council and Ashford shared second place on 81.
- Best planning service: Medway (77, B). Medway decided all 83 of its major planning applications on time in the two years to June 2026, and 96.3% of smaller ones. Only 1.1% of its major decisions were overturned at appeal, against 3.2% for England. Maidstone was second on 73.
- Best on housing: Tunbridge Wells (68, C). It had 1.44 households in temporary accommodation per 1,000 at the end of March 2026, about half the rate for England outside London, and 69.4% of its homelessness prevention cases in 2024-25 ended with a home secured for at least six months, against 51.9% for England. Canterbury was second on 63.
- Most improved: Maidstone, planning (68 to 73, C to B). Maidstone decided 95.5% of major applications on time, up from 93.5%, and the share of its major decisions overturned at appeal fell from 4.2% to 3.1%.
Dover’s freedom of information score is pending, because its figures arrived on 23 October, after the notices had gone out. Folkestone & Hythe’s is held at its July score while the council clarifies the figures it supplied.
The bottom of each table
On bins, Dartford scores 27 (F). It recycled 23.7% of household waste in 2024-25, the lowest rate in Kent, and produced the most residual waste per household.
On complaints, Medway scores 45 (D). The Ombudsman upheld 92% of the Medway complaints it investigated in 2025-26, against an 85% average for unitary councils.
On freedom of information, Tonbridge & Malling scores 37 (F). The council answered 72.56% of requests on time in 2025 (706 of 973), against the 90% the Information Commissioner expects. It records its figures by calendar year, so 2025 is used. Its figures for 2026 to the end of August are better, at 82.63%. The council told Kent Local News that the one Information Commissioner decision that went against it, in June 2025, was not a substantive finding; its full comments are published with the score.
On finances, Thanet scores 14 (F). It overspent its 2024-25 budget by £4.6m, or 20.4%, and its external auditor rates all three of its value-for-money criteria as significant weaknesses.
On transparency, Thanet scores 66 (C), the only council outside band B. The Kent Business Portal register that its contracts page points to listed no Thanet contracts when Kent Local News checked it.
On planning, Canterbury scores 43 (D). It decided 82.6% of major applications and 78.4% of smaller ones on time in the two years to June 2026, against England averages of 91.0% and 90.7%.
On housing, Gravesham scores 39 (F). It had 257 households in temporary accommodation at the end of March 2026, 6.10 per 1,000 households, with 417 children among them, and 30.2% of its prevention cases in 2024-25 secured a home for six months or more.
The new measures
Highways and adult social care apply only to Kent County Council and Medway, which run those services, so they are reported but not awarded.
On highways, Kent County Council scores 54 (D) and Medway 55 (C). In the Department for Transport’s figures for the year to March 2026, published on 14 October, 7% of Kent’s A roads and 7% of its B and C roads needed maintenance considering, against 4% and 6% for England. For Medway the figures were 5% and 8%. Both scores fell after the new edition came out, and both councils were sent a further notice before publication.
On adult social care, Kent County Council scores 61 (C) and Medway 57 (C). The Care Quality Commission rated both as requiring improvement. Kent publishes how long people wait for a care needs assessment every quarter; Medway does not publish a regular figure.
Housing and homelessness applies to the 12 districts and Medway. Planning now includes the use of enforcement notices, and the school-system panel for Kent County Council and Medway, which is not a council score, has been rebuilt from Ofsted and Department for Education statistics.
Who was in charge when
Every score names the administration in office during the period it measures. The highways figures for Kent County Council cover a year almost wholly under the Reform UK administration, which took control on 22 May 2025, but the condition of roads reflects maintenance over many years, most of them under the previous Conservative administration. The Scorecard records who held office; readers can judge credit and blame for themselves.
What comes next
From Tuesday 3 November, Kent Local News will publish a piece on each of the 14 councils, one each weekday, setting out how it scored and what that means for the towns it serves. The next refresh is due in January 2027.
The right of reply stays open. Any council response received after publication will be published word for word beside the score it concerns. Corrections are welcome from councils and readers at editor@kentlocalnews.co.uk.