Reform UK to pilot Doge-style scheme to examine council spending

The Guardian

2 days ago

Reform UK has told council officers they will face 'gross misconduct' if they obstruct an Elon Musk-style department of government efficiency unit to examine all council spending in areas they control.
The party will pilot the Doge-style scheme in Kent county council, led by a team including the Brexit donor Arron Banks as well as cybersecurity entrepreneur Nathaniel Fried.
The move has been criticised as 'political theatre' by senior local authority figures and opposition politicians.
The Conservative peer and pollster Robert Hayward told Politico he had written to the Electoral Commission arguing that the Reform volunteers should be scrutinised under political donation rules as a donation in kind. Lord Hayward said: 'Without full disclosure, the risk is that any donation could be buying access or influence election results.'
Announcing the new initiative, Reform said the team would start to go through all council expenditure, beginning with Kent county council, to identify wasteful spending in the manner of the unit set up by Musk under Donald Trump with the aim of cutting wasteful spending.
It said it would use artificial intelligence, advanced data analysis tools and forensic auditing techniques to 'identify wasteful spending and recommend actionable solutions'.
It said all council officers should hand over all documents requested, including internal investigations or whistleblowing reports relevant to financial matters.
It added: 'Should you resist this request, we are ready to pass a council motion to compel the same and will consider any obstruction of our councillors' duties to be gross misconduct. We trust this will not be required.'
The instruction was signed by the council leader, Linden Kemkaran; the party chair, Zia Yusuf, and the Reform leader, Nigel Farage.
Announcing the scheme, Yusuf said: 'For too long British taxpayers have watched their money vanish into a black hole. Their taxes keep going up, their bin collections keep getting less frequent, potholes remain unfixed, their local services keep getting cut. Reform won a historic victory on a mandate to change this.
'As promised, we have created a UK Doge to identify and cut wasteful spending of taxpayer money. Our team will use cutting-edge technology and deliver real value for voters.'
Farage told GB News that all of those involved were doing it on a voluntary basis. He said: 'This is day one of Doge. The Doge team has gone into County Hall in Maidstone in Kent this very morning, a team of young tech entrepreneurs who are not being paid. They're doing it of their own free will, and we're going in to have a look at Kent, have a look at the contracts, to have a look at the expenditure.
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'We hope that the Kent chief executive and the council will work with us because, of course, many of the decisions, decisions on spending, would have been political decisions. No, Doge is active, up and running as we speak.'
Cllr John Merry, the deputy mayor of Salford who chairs the Key Cities group of 24 councils across the UK, said Doge was 'absolutely the last thing local authorities need right now'.
He said: 'I hear daily from members facing mounting pressures across vital services like Send [special educational needs and disabilities], social care and homelessness. In this context, it is difficult to see how Reform's Doge initiative offers any meaningful solution. What councils need now is not inefficient cost-cutting at the margins, but a serious commitment to long-term funding reform – one that aligns grant allocation with local needs and supports a resilient foundation for economic growth.'
Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, said: 'If you're looking at Elon Musk's Doge and thinking that is how we want to have our bins collected and potholes filled – you might be learning the wrong lesson.'