\n<\/p>\n
Reform UK has ignored requests to share the evidence for its claim to have saved \u00a3331m since it took charge of 10 English councils in May, prompting questions over whether the figure is true.<\/p>\n
The party has boasted that it had achieved \u00a3331m worth of savings at English councils it controls. Warning of a \u201cblob\u201d of vested interests devoted to \u201cripping off\u201d taxpayers, Richard Tice, the new head of the party\u2019s self-styled \u2018Doge\u2019 cost-cutting unit, added: \u201cWe\u2019re going to war with these people\u201d.<\/p>\n
Yet on closer analysis, examples of supposed savings at councils ranging from Durham to its \u201cshowcase\u201d Kent appear questionable. In some cases, credit is claimed for initiatives already set in train by predecessors.<\/p>\n
When the supposed savings initiatives described by Reform are totted up, there is still an unexplained shortfall of \u00a3260m. Reform\u2019s press team repeatedly told the Guardian that a full list detailing the \u00a3331m in savings had been produced and would be shared. But despite numerous requests since Monday, it has not been provided.<\/p>\n
Local government experts say it was always going to be a struggle for Reform to identify wasted spending that could be cut without signifiant trade-offs in services.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are not coming into this at a point where everyone else has sat idly by until now,\u201d said Stuart Hoddinott, associate director of the public services team at the Institute for Government (IfG).<\/p>\n
<\/span>Folkestone beach, Kent.<\/span> Photograph: Peter Flude\/The Guardian<\/p>\n There are potential ways of making local government more efficient, he added, but they would mostly require upfront investment. A case in point is IT, where Tice\u2019s \u2018Doge\u2019 predecessor, Zia Yusuf, had bemoaned the wasted staff time due to \u201cgenuinely ancient\u201d systems.<\/p>\n Reform will struggle to find wasteful spending, agreed Prof Tony Travers, a local government expert at the London School of Economics, who said their council leaders had inherited the same legacy of austerity which predecessors had struggled with.<\/p>\n \u201cThe things they have majored on, like eliminating spending on diversity programmes, were never more than tiny amounts of money,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve just looked at the latest draft budget plans by Reform-controlled councils this week and what is striking is how similar they are to the approaches of Labour and Conservative controlled councils. There is a limited number of ways in which you can deliver libraries or other services when money is tight. There isn\u2019t a left wing or right wing way of filling pot-holes.\u201d<\/p>\n So on the claims Reform has explained in more detail, how do the numbers stack up?<\/p>\n The supposed saving has been cited by Linden Kemkaran, Reform\u2019s leader of Kent county council, who claimed the party was bringing a \u201claser-like\u201d focus to savings.<\/p>\n However, calculations by the council\u2019s own officials stress that going ahead with switching its fleet over to electric would in fact save the local authority up to \u00a3100,000 per year.<\/p>\n Reform\u2019s claim that avoiding the upfront costs is a money-saver is therefore \u201cbogus\u201d, said Green councillor Stuart Heaver. \u201cIt assumes those electric vehicles would not need to be replaced with anything,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n The transition plans are also described as a \u201cpotential forthcoming project\u201d in the 2025-26 council budget plan, with \u00a35m not due to be spent until 2029-30.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s quite easy to \u2018cut\u2019 spending you weren\u2019t planning to make for three years,\u201d said the Kent Liberal Democrat leader Antony Hook.<\/p>\n A council spokesperson said the council would have needed to borrow to fund the \u00a37.5m cost of the transition. She added that it cost \u00a31.4m a year to maintain the existing fleet of 213 vehicles.<\/p>\n The IfG\u2019s Stuart Hoddinott said not buying the EV vehicles was a short term move that could store up future costs.<\/p>\n \u201cYou might save some capital budget and money in the short term but you are still left with having to run a fleet of vehicles that are old and require maintenance.\u201d<\/p>\n Reform-controlled Staffordshire county council announced last month that new charging points for electric vehicles \u2013 a bete noire for the climate change skeptic party \u2013 \u201care set to be refocused.\u201d<\/p>\n Rather than being sited on Staffordshire town streets, the party wants the points to be in publicly owned car parks to \u201creflect the county\u2019s rural nature and wider community needs\u201d.<\/p>\n Yet while the move was being presented in reports this week as a saving, no agreement appears has been reached on whether the money from a central government grant can be spent in a different way.<\/p>\n <\/span>Reform wants EV points to be in publicly owned car parks to \u2018reflect the county\u2019s rural nature and wider community needs\u2019.<\/span> Photograph: Bloomberg\/Getty Images<\/p>\n The Department for Transport said officials recently met with Staffordshire county council to discuss a new application, which had yet to received.<\/p>\n \u201cThe fundamentals are that this is not council tax money being spent. It\u2019s a ringfenced grant linked to a specific scheme,\u201d said Philip White, leader of the Conservative group on the council.<\/p>\n A Staffordshire county council spokesperson said: \u201cWe are currently working with the government to develop a new plan for a grant to be spent on community\/public charging locations in Staffordshire.\u201d<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what\u2019s happening and why it matters<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.<\/span><\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n The agreement of a new IT contract was listed as one of the party\u2019s \u201cachievements\u201d in its first 100 days of controlling Lincolnshire county council.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re ambitious about what can be achieved when we look at new ways of working to improve things,\u201d said the council\u2019s Reform UK leader, Sean Matthews, as the party claimed credit for a new IT partnership with Irish company Version 1.<\/p>\n What Matthews did not mention, say the opposition Conservatives, who previously controlled the council, is that the new service was designed over recent years and was awarded to a company already designated as a \u201cpreferred bidder\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cBy the time they had taken over in May all of the major decisions had been made. Councillors don\u2019t design IT contracts,\u201d said Richard Davies, leader of the council\u2019s Tory group, who gave credit to non-party council officials.<\/p>\n A Lincolnshire county council spokesperson said \u201cthe final moderation\u201d of the procurement was after the election and the new administration were \u201cheavily involved.\u201d<\/p>\n Similar questions arise at Lancashire county council, where reports suggested Reform was claiming credit for saving \u00a31.7m in IT and digital services. Aidy Riggott, leader of the council\u2019s Conservative group, said a new digital strategy had already been under way before Reform took control, which included rationalising the number of IT licences used by staff.<\/p>\n Plans to sell the ageing municipal building where Reform\u2019s \u201cflagship\u201d county council is based were scrapped in one of the first actions taken by the party after its sweeping local election wins.<\/p>\n The council\u2019s leader, Linden Kemkaran, told of her surprise at how much was being spent on moving to a new office and argued that it made more sense to stay put as it was unclear whether the authority might yet be abolished under an overhaul of local government.<\/p>\n Yet the logic of the decision is hotly contested by opposition councillors, who note that the building is in a decrepit state and will cost \u00a365m to bring up to scratch for permanent use.<\/p>\n <\/span>The Reform UK councillors elected to Kent county council, at County Hall in Maidstone, Kent.<\/span> Photograph: Gareth Fuller\/PA<\/p>\n A council report in September noted that the continued running costs are estimated at \u00a32.3 to 2.6m, with \u00a316m worth of spending envisaged as needed before 2027.<\/p>\n A council spokesperson said the \u00a314m was a \u201cdirection of travel\u201d figure and that an analysis found \u00a312m would be saved in capital costs against the current borrowing assumptions. A \u201cminimum expenditure\u201d would be deployed to make the building usable by staff and members, they added.<\/p>\n Reform UK have not put a figure on the biggest ticket spending which the party is promising significant savings on.<\/p>\n Special educational needs and disabilities spending is one of the most fraught issues in politics, with councils heading for debts of \u00a318bn by the end of the decade due to increasing numbers of children requiring extra teaching support in schools.<\/p>\n Tice claimed on Tuesday that neurodiverse conditions like ADHD were being overdiagnosed, and suggested that councils could save millions by scrapping annual reviews of education and health care plans, the legal documents entitling children to support from local authorities.<\/p>\n However, it\u2019s unclear how councils could do this, given their statutory obligations to deliver the ECHPs. Any change is theoretical barring the kind of sweeping central government legislation that Labour is struggling with.<\/p>\n On local government pension schemes (LGPs), which are statutory for employees working in local government in England and Wales, Tice has claimed the investment fees associated with them are \u201cegregious\u201d and that the 13 councils included in a Reform analysis are overpaying by \u00a3265m in just one year. The Reform deputy leader has also accused pension providers of \u201cunderperformance\u201d and \u201cinvesting in woke things\u201d.<\/p>\n This is a \u201cstrange line of attack,\u201d according to the IfG\u2019s Stuart Hoddinott, who cited reports that LGPs had seen a significant improvement in funding levels amid large surpluses.<\/p>\n \u201cOverall my impression is that these schemes overall seem to be doing quite well, to the point where they have been able to reduce contributions.\u201d<\/p>\n More generally, he said, the idea that sweeping savings are available appears unlikely. \u201cMost of the easy savings that could have been made, have been made,\u201d he added. \u201cAlmost all local authorities are at the point where they are making really difficult trade offs.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Reform UK has ignored requests to share the evidence for its claim to have saved \u00a3331m since it took charge of 10 English councils in May, prompting questions over whether the figure is true. The party has boasted that it had achieved \u00a3331m worth of savings at English councils it controls. Warning of a \u201cblob\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35002,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[19805,3287,1013,488,5076,838,1735,15087],"class_list":{"0":"post-35001","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-social-issues","8":"tag-331m","9":"tag-claim","10":"tag-councils","11":"tag-english","12":"tag-numbers","13":"tag-reform","14":"tag-saved","15":"tag-stack"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35001","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=35001"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35001\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/35002"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=35001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=35001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=35001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Action: Scrapping a plan to transition Kent <\/strong>county council\u2019s vehicle fleet to electric by 2030.<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Claimed saving: \u00a37.5m<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Action: Pulling out of a project for electric car charging in Staffordshire<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Claimed saving: \u00a34m<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Action: Agreeing new IT contract in Lincolnshire and Lancashire<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Claimed saving: \u00a330m and \u00a31.7m<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Action: cancelling the sale of Kent <\/strong>county <\/strong>council\u2019s headquarters in Maidstone<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Claimed savings: \u00a314m<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Action: Reforming <\/strong>special <\/strong>educational <\/strong>needs and <\/strong>disabilities provision <\/strong>and <\/strong>local <\/strong>government <\/strong>pension <\/strong>schemes<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Claimed savings: \u201cmillions\u201d \/ \u00a38-10bn<\/strong><\/h2>\n