Dover District Council has the best transparency score in Kent and wins the Scorecard award for it, but scores in band D for finances and for housing on the Kent Council Scorecard’s October 2026 refresh.
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.
Dover District Council, which collects the bins, decides planning applications and handles housing for about 114,000 people in Dover, Deal, Sandwich and the villages around them, is scored on seven measures in the October refresh of the Kent Council Scorecard, with an eighth still pending. It scores in band B on one, band C on three and band D on three. This is the sixth of 14 pieces, one for each Kent council.
Scores run from 0 to 100 and are banded A to F. They are never added together, because each measures a different service with different data. The full evidence for every score is on the Dover District Council page.
The scores at a glance
| Measure | Score | Band | Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| Refuse collection | 60 | C | joint 5th of 13 |
| Complaints handling | 62 | C | joint 2nd of 14 |
| Freedom of information | Pending | — | |
| Financial health | 50 | D | 10th of 14 |
| Transparency | 83 | B | 1st of 14 |
| Planning | 67 | C | joint 4th of 13 |
| Housing and homelessness | 54 | D | joint 6th of 13 |
| Manifesto delivery (Trust) | 50 | D | joint 9th of 14 |
Education, safeguarding, highways and adult social care are run by Kent County Council, so they do not apply to the district.
Where it does best
On transparency, Dover scores 83, the highest in Kent, and wins the Scorecard award for the most transparent council. It publishes spending of £250 and over every month, with 15 years of archive, and keeps a paginated log of the information it has released under freedom of information. It also publishes a contracts register, councillors’ allowances, senior pay and a dedicated transparency and open-data section.
On complaints, it is joint second with Swale and Folkestone & Hythe on 62. The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman completed no investigations into the council in 2025-26, and upheld one of three in 2024-25.
On planning, it scores 67. It decided 91.9% of major applications and 90.3% of smaller ones on time in the two years to June 2026, against England averages of 91.0% and 90.7%, and none of its major decisions was overturned at appeal in the two years to September 2025.
On bins, it recycled 43.3% of household waste in 2024-25, above the England average of 42.0%, with residual waste of 404.8kg per household against 513.3kg nationally.
Where it falls short
On finances, Dover scores 50. It is the only Kent council under statutory recommendations from its external auditor, Grant Thornton, issued in January 2025 on financial management and governance, and the auditor rates its financial sustainability and governance as significant weaknesses. Its 2025-26 revenue outturn was a £400k surplus, and its total usable reserves are £92.8m, but the general fund balance itself is £1.5m and its medium-term plan relies on £2m of savings not yet identified.
On housing, it scores 54. At the end of March 2026, 312 households were in temporary accommodation, 5.85 per 1,000 households, more than twice the rate for England outside London, with 295 children among them. In 2024-25, 48.9% of its homelessness prevention cases ended with a home secured for at least six months, against 51.9% for England. It does better on supply: it delivered 108% of the homes the Housing Delivery Test required, and affordable homes made up 22.1% of the requirement, above the Kent median of 17.2%.
Freedom of information
Dover’s freedom of information score is pending. Kent Local News’s first request, in July, did not reach the council, and its answer to the re-sent request arrived on 23 October, after the councils had been sent their scores for right of reply. The council says 97.97% of requests were answered within 20 working days in 2025-26, from 1,107 received. The score will be added once the council has had the chance to respond to it. The Information Commissioner issued three decision notices about the council in the three years to 1 October, none of them upheld.
Promises
The Trust score of 50 combines KLN’s tracking of the Labour administration’s election pledges with whether its actions match the issues residents raise. Of three pledges tracked, one is partly kept, on working with the Port of Dover’s 2050 plan, and two are still pending.
Who was in charge
Labour, led by Kevin Mills, has run the council since May 2023, with a majority until January 2025 and as a minority since. Most of the data covers years under that administration, and the auditor’s statutory recommendations were issued during its tenure. Each score on the council’s page names the administration in office during the period it measures.
What the council said
Dover did not respond to the first refresh in July. It was sent its October scores on 2 October; its press office sent an automatic reply, but the council did not respond before the deadline of 23 October.
What it means for Dover, Deal and Sandwich
Residents can follow council news on the Dover and Deal and Sandwich pages. The Scorecard hub has a comparison table for each measure. Tomorrow: Folkestone & Hythe District Council.
The right of reply stays open. Any response from the council will be published word for word beside the score it concerns. Corrections are welcome at editor@kentlocalnews.co.uk.