Will Nigel Farage's ‘Doge' project achieve anything useful?
Having impressively seized control of 10 county councils in the recent elections, Reform UK are delivering on their promise to undertake Elon Musk/ Doge -style reviews of the operations of the various local authorities under their command. The first to get the treatment is Kent County Council. Some doubt whether such a comic-opera version of the American exercise is really serious, or if it's just a stunt...
Why are they doing this?
Well, it was an election pledge, and ostensibly it could save some money that would otherwise be wasted, and make some services more efficient. Nothing wrong with that.
Who is on the crack team?
It's fair to say that some are quite successful businesspeople, and some, apparently, are IT experts; but, unlike the US Doge brigade, the British team actually includes the new leader and deputy leader of the council, Linden Kemkaran and Brian Collins.
It is also fair to say that none of the Reform UK Doge team are able to rival the expertise, let alone vast wealth, of Elon Musk (or, perhaps, the skills of the small group that the world's richest man brought to DC).
Nor does the slightly pretentious letter signed by Kemkaran, Nigel Farage and Reform chair Zia Yusuf possess the gravitas of an executive order signed by the president of the United States of America. It contains a good deal of Trumpian menace, but the fact is that Kemkaran is in no stronger a position than anyone would be in a comparable role in local government. So a lot of the Reform/Doge activity, including the 'We mean business' pics, is 'performative', as they say.
The full list is:
Nathaniel Fried, 'open-source intelligence' guru (head of Doge)
Arron Banks, businessman and Reform politician (adviser to Doge)
Zia Yusuf, chair of Reform UK
Linden Kemkaran, leader of Kent County Council
Brian Collins, deputy leader of Kent County Council
We shall see how high-powered they are, and also how easily bored.
So it is a stunt?
Yes, to the extent that any council leader can task their officers with finding efficiency savings, and/or hire consultants to do the same. Plus councils are regularly and independently audited in any case, by law. It's pretty unnecessary, and American Doge was, arguably, an embarrassing flop.
Will there be waste, fraud and abuse?
It's difficult to believe there won't be any at all, but then again it all depends on what's meant by 'waste'. Was almost the entire USAID budget consumed by waste, fraud and abuse, or did the vast majority of it save lives and serve US foreign policy? In the smaller context of a local authority area, will a flower bed enlivening the town hall, however economical its maintenance, count as essential or a frippery? What about a mother-and-toddler group? Or the green waste collections? Or, in somewhere like Lincolnshire, flood defences?
These are, in reality, just routine political choices, and the whole panoply of a British Doge is unnecessary for them to be made.
It's also not too cheesy to suggest that waste, fraud and abuse are simple facts of human life; that they exist, sadly, in private enterprise; and that even Musk and Trump have blown a few dollars here and there rather unwisely.
What about gold-plated pensions?
Most former refuse collectors, ex-leisure-centre staff and retired planners didn't earn enough for anyone to be that envious of their pension, but in any case, they are protected and their payments are contractual. The Doge team could certainly chop future pension entitlements not yet earned by staff, but that wouldn't yield much in the way of immediate savings.
They could also freeze or reduce council salaries, and change future pension rules, but with the risk of industrial action and/or not being able to recruit people. The six-figure salaries of senior professionals could also be reduced, but that carries the danger of not being able to find capable replacements, and amateurs are legally only allowed to do so much.
What could go wrong?
Lots. As anyone with any exposure to local government knows, most of its expenditure is mandated under law – on housing, adult and child social care, and special educational needs. So this is where the major savings could be made.
One way would be for contracts with, say, a care home provider to be renegotiated, with no loss of amenity for the residents in terms of their supervision, timely referrals for medical attention, cleanliness, recreation or standard of meals. Or, more crudely, a Doge-style functionary could just chop the value of the contract in half, without much interest in the horrific consequences for those in the homes, or for the children needing special help with their development.
Like the Militant-run Liverpool City Council in the 1980s, political posturing and playing with people's jobs and lives could cause real suffering for purely political mischief. In extremis, a local council run by Reform UK that breaches its statutory obligations under the Local Government Act 1972 and other legislation could find itself subject to legal action brought by the secretary of state, Angela Rayner (which they'd no doubt welcome for theatrical purposes).
What will Reform Doge achieve?
Misery and mayhem, most likely. Yes, they will surely find some minor extravagance, misrepresent valuable programmes, and hype up whatever money they save, playing down any diminution in the services provided. Very much like the real Musk Doge show, in fact.
If they do save more substantial sums – enough, say, to cut residents' council tax – then it will probably be at the expense of some highly vulnerable people, and their obligations under the law. The same goes for any attempts to ignore the strictures of the Equality Act 2010, or unlawful action against asylum-seekers, or interference in operational matters in the police force. It could get very messy.
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