Reform UK chair quits but work to cut 'waste and inefficiency' at Kent County Council will go on
ITV News Meridian's Sarah Saunders has more on what's happened to Kent County Council after the departure of Zia Yusuf.
The new leader of Kent County Council says work to rid KCC of "waste and inefficiency", will go on.
That is despite the team she brought into carry out a US-style economy drive standing down just days after arriving in the county.The Chairman of Reform UK, Zia Yusuf, and a tech entrepreneur had been tasked with heading up a DOGE style team last Monday.
Kent County Council leader, Linden Kemkaran, said: "They have started work already and on Monday when Zia Yusuf came here to County Hall to give us that political impetus to really get going.
"We were able to present to Zia our report on what we had found already and do you know what, he was very, very impressed.
"He was amazed that we were able to do so much work in such a short space of time. So really for us, the work carries on, nothing has changed."Reform UK took over Kent County Council last month with an overwhelming majority.
On Monday 2nd June the Chairman of Reform UK arrived in Kent to great fanfare to launch the party's first DOGE team looking for possibly millions of pounds worth of efficiencies. Four days later and he has resigned from the party and his tech volunteer Nathaniel Fried has opted to go with him.
Nathaniel Fried said: "Yes, of course they will be able to make savings without me. There's a great team that I put in place there and there's very committed councillors which have invested a lot of time and effort into this stuff.
"There's definitely inefficiency in these local councils, not much of it is because of the councils, a lot of it is because of central government funding but I still think there are major saving that they can definitely make."Zia Yusuf stood down after an internal spat in the Reform Party over whether the burhka should be banned.
He was the driving force behind the Reform DOGE style missions but the new leader of KCC says their plans to reduce waste remain on target.While KCC minimised the loss of these two figures, Labour MP for East Thanet, Polly Billington, said: "I think it's completely reasonable that anybody incoming would want to make sure that money was being spent properly, that's exactly what an incoming administration should do.
"But bringing in private people who don't have the qualifications in order to be able to do this properly, is actually quite irresponsible.
"Unsurprisingly, they've ended up with chaos, incompetence and resignations, that doesn't serve the people of Kent very well, and doesn't show that Reform is serious about being a proper party of government."
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