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A flagship council won last month by Nigel Farage’s Reform UK has cancelled a third of its upcoming council meetings, amid claims the new administration has no idea how to run a local authority.
As of May, Kent County Council is now run by Reform UK, one of 12 in England led by the party.
Since the election a swathe of crucial council meetings have been either scrapped or postponed as the new administration tries to work out what it is doing, with seven out of 20 meetings this month put on hold.
Opposition Labour councillor Alister Brady told Byline Times: “The administration are not ready yet. At the moment there are induction meetings and the experienced councillors are getting on with case work but there is a decision free zone within KCC at the moment.
“They don’t know what they’re doing.”
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They include gatherings of legally-required committees such as the Governance and Audit committee which are essential to setting a budget and keeping finances in check.
One possible reason for the delay is enhanced criminal record (DBS) checks should be landing on councillors’ doorsteps shortly. Every councillor needs an enhanced DBS check since councillors deal with vulnerable adults and children in casework.
Meanwhile the administration has put an extra cabinet member in place – supposedly to find ‘efficiencies’, dubbed DOLGE (‘Department for Local Government Efficiency’) after Elon Musk’s DOGE in the US. The latter failed to find anywhere near the savings the Tesla boss and Trump adviser promised.
The new cabinet member means the council is paying an additional Special Responsibility Allowance worth nearly £37,000 on top of their £17,123 allowance. “They’re actually costing more money,” Brady said.
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“They’re trying to justify it by saying councillors’ allowances will be reduced by 5%, but they can’t actually do that because they have to go to the Independent Remuneration Panel with that recommendation.
“They can’t make that decision unilaterally. So at the moment, they’ve increased spending on cabinet members, not decreased it. The person who’s supposed to make things more efficient is actually making it cost more…”
After this article was published, a Kent County Council spokesperson denied that the ‘DOLGE’ post came at an extra cost, saying: “Councils are only permitted a maximum of 10 Cabinet Member posts. The Leader has been revising the portfolios from previous administrations and introduced the ‘DOLGE’ element in place of now-removed Cabinet posts, with no increase in Special Responsibility Allowance payments as a result.”
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The new leader’s X account has also been suspended, apparently for violation of X’s rules. In 2019, Linden Kemkaran – then a Conservative election candidate in Bradford despite living in Kent – allegedly re-tweeted a post saying that Muslims have a “nasty culture.” Kemkaran is a former BBC news reporter. It is not clear if Kemkaran’s account was suspended for this reason.
Cllr Brady has asked the new Reform administration if they will reverse any of the Conservative cuts of the past decade. “They said it wasn’t in their remit to do that. Most of them were ex-Tories – they were members of the Tory party until recently, they just changed their party label,” he said.
Kent County Council and the Reform council leader have been contacted for comment. A spokesperson for Kent County Council said they had asked Byline Times’ questions of the new administration but appeared to have not heard back.
UPDATE 4th June: On meetings being cancelled, a Kent County Council spokesperson said: “A number of meetings were squeezed into June due to the election and induction period preventing them from being held in May (as would be the case in a non-election year). Because there are no time sensitive issues due at these June meetings, consideration is being given to deferring business to relevant July meetings to make best use of Member and Officer time.
“Further meetings may be reviewed and changed depending on operational requirements.”
Update: This piece initially stated that Reform UK control ten councils. The correct figure is 12 according to Open Council Data.
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