Council Transparency

Information on different subjects is available on this page. To go directly to each section please click on the following links:

Information on council spending

The Communities Secretary has urged councils to publish details online of spending over £500 to increase openness and accountability. Information on payments we have made to suppliers over £500 from December 2010 is available to download below, as from August 2012 we have published the spending data over £250.

For each month the following information is shown:

date of invoice
transaction number (a unique reference number - to find out more about a payment please quote this number)
amount paid on the invoice
name of the supplier paid
the service where it was spent

Please note that the information is based on the payment date.

Publication of these lists forms part of our commitment to be open and transparent with its residents. All data provided is freely re-usable under the following terms: Data Terms and Conditions.

The percentage of their invoices paid within 30-days for 2015/16 was 99% and the amount of interest paid to suppliers due to late payment was nil.

If you have any other questions about a payment then please contact the Customer Service Centre and quote the amount and transaction number.

Spend per month documents

Find the data we have on spend per month.

Previous years' spend per month documents are available to view on our document library.

Pay Policy Statement and senior staff salaries

The Government has set out its clear commitment to improved transparency about how it spends public money. This includes details of the size and shape of public bodies and about the remuneration provided to senior public servants. This is consistent with the Information Commissioners guidance that senior public servants should expect a degree of scrutiny of their remuneration arrangements. The Pay Policy Statement sets out details of the terms and conditions for employees at the council including the details about salaries of senior staff. The organisation chart illustrates how the council is structured.

Below you will find documents relating to senior staff salaries and our organisational chart.

More information may be found at Local Government Transparency Programme.

Gender pay gap

From 2017, any employer that has 250 or more employees will need to publish and report specific figures about their gender pay gap.

The gender pay gap is the difference between the average earnings of men and women, expressed relative to men’s earnings.

The Council must both:

publish the gender pay gap data and a written statement on the council website
report the data on the government gender pay gap reporting website

The figures must be calculated using a snapshot of the salary data on 31 March 2017.

The Gender pay gap report (PDF 210kb) sets out the figures we need to publish with an analysis of the information.

Council Tax in Kent Districts

You can download the Council Tax bands by district for 2018 to 2019, excluding parish precepts (CSV 1kb).

Open data communities

Find out more about open data communities on the Department for Communities and Local Government (the DCLG) website.

The pages in this link illustrate a selection of the data held by the DCLG relative to the Swale Borough Council area, broken down into 5 general sub-headings of Housing, Finance, Deprivation, Wellbeing and Geography.

Voluntary and community sector grants

The separate registers below in CSV format focus on and list grants from Swale Borough Council to voluntary, community and social enterprise organisations.

Workforce equality data

Find the data we have on workforce equality.

Workforce Equalities Data 2016 (PDF 299kb)

Local Area Perception survey data

Find the data we have on the resident perception survey.

Customer satisfaction rating for environmental response team

Data for customer satisfaction rating for Environmental Response Team:

Jul 2016 - Dec 2016; excellent 35%, good 47%, acceptable 12%, poor 6%
Mar 2016 - Aug 2016; excellent 66%, good 34%
Feb 2016 - July 2016; excellent 58%, good 34%, poor 8%

Property services data

Find the data we have on Property services data

Contracts Register

Find the data we have on our contracts.

View our commissioning and procurement page for information on tendering opportunities.

Parking

Find the data we have on parking data.

Additional information can be found by downloading our Annual Parking Report 2013-14 (PDF 101kb)

Fraud

Find the data we have on fraud data.

External inspection and peer review

From time to time the Council is subject to external challenge by others within the Local Government Sector. This provides validation concerning the systems and processes we have in place, but more importantly serves as a mechanism to help us drive forward further improvement.

Trade Union Facility

The Trade Union (Facility Time Publication Requirements) Regulations 2017 requires local authorities to publish information on trade union facility time

The Council recognises UNISON, and there is a history of co-operative employee relations. As a result of this cooperative approach, a range of fair employment policies are in place.

For period 1 April 2018 – 31 March 2019

The total number of employees who are trade union representatives is:

	Headcount	FTE
UNISON	5	4.6

Percentage of time spent by union officials on facility time is:

Percentage of time	Number of employees
0%	0
1-50%	4
51%-99%	0
100%	0

Note: only 2% of facility time is spent by union officials.

Percentage of pay bill spent on facility time:

Total cost of facility time	£3046
Total pay bill	£11,285,187
Percentage of pay bill	0.03%

There has been no time spent on paid trade union activities.

Constitution

To read our constitution, visit the council section of our website.

Peer Review

Find out how we did when being reviewed by an expert panel from with the Local Government sector.