Reform to begin Musk-style audits of councils

Read about Thurrock Council today? £268 million?!? Where on earth did they get that amount from in the first place to invest? Hope the council are investigated as well. No wonder Reform think they’re onto a winner here.

I'm in Kent and I'll watch with interest the "savings" - after the people employed to find them have been paid, of course.
There seems to be an understanding on the part of Reform that the county has been run by " woke lefties", so there's lots of silly projects to be cut; it has been Conservative for decades.

Casdon

This is an interesting breakdown of how every £1 of council income is spent. Look at what is by far the biggest percentage of expenditure. Do older Reform voters really want that budget to be cut back even further to the bone?
www.local.gov.uk/about/campaigns/save-local-services/save-local-services-how-ps1-council-funding-spent

I'm afraid all the Farage/Trump worshippers will not look at this Casdon. These people seem to fear the truth even when they see how belief in snake-oil salesment has worked out elsewhere. They would far rather find yet another group of the dispossessed (in whatever way) to blame.

Casdon

My experience Witzend is that the vanity projects are usually funded because the party running the council has a bee in their bonnet about whatever it is, and insist that funding is allocated to that area. Officers of the council are not the ones in charge of funding allocation, it has to be approved by the councillors.

Yes! This - absolutely correct.

Witzend could you give examples of the sort of things these ‘frills’ were?

It’s great that we have some Kent natives on GN. Please keep us informed of the reality of what’s happening.

I fear that all we’ll hear from the media will be rhetoric, sound bites and downright disinformation.

My experience Witzend is that the vanity projects are usually funded because the party running the council has a bee in their bonnet about whatever it is, and insist that funding is allocated to that area. Officers of the council are not the ones in charge of funding allocation, it has to be approved by the councillors.

God knows I’m no fan of Farage, but having worked (in the past) for some years for the local council, I couldn’t help noticing what they were spending on what I’d call ‘frills’ - while pleading poverty and sending out questionnaires to residents with questions like, ‘Would you prefer us to cut a) children’s services, b) old people’s services, or c) libraries?

Every single LA has to publish a statement of accounts every year and it’s in the public forum.

Why don’t check out your own councils statement of accounts and get a flavour of what it’s spent on and they decide how much of this is “waste” and “vanity projects”

Councils provide services we sometimes overlook, waste collections we always remember, but most councils also provide a local recycling centre or “tip” or “dump” and provide public dog poo bins and rubbish bins, this is just one example.

Where I live we have three huge public parks and a seafront, should we stop maintaining these?

We have a very large council sports and swimming centre, shall we close this?

We have a large aging population, with people living longer and longer, it’s not unusual for people to live into their nineties these days.

Also so called “vanity projects” are often not funded directly from council funding but from grants and local businesses.

We really need to unpick things, imo, before we can agree if bringing in external forensic auditors is a good use of council funding.

One man's vanity project is the thing that changes another person's life for the better.

I am a Kent native too. I expect this to cost a huge amount without much, if any, change/improvement but will do my best and try to keep an open mind.

This is an interesting breakdown of how every £1 of council income is spent. Look at what is by far the biggest percentage of expenditure. Do older Reform voters really want that budget to be cut back even further to the bone?
www.local.gov.uk/about/campaigns/save-local-services/save-local-services-how-ps1-council-funding-spent

It's this isn't it.
Councils are struggling because funding has been restricted for so long.
I heard someone on Radio 4 last night saying that the defence spending is a breath of fresh air after 14 years of no increase in budget. If we're in a mess it's because of this.

Reform's MO is to detract from this fact and make people believe that other reasons/people are to blame.

What worries me even more than the cost of all this is that it must be Farage pulling the strings at the 10 Reform controlled councils. Is this what we want and need? Is it ethical?

This is all good.
We have a Kent native, who may keep us posted when all the improvements happen.
Accuracy is important, and now we have true names for the audit teams from growstuff, 'DILDO', and from Silverbrooks, 'DOGGING'.
This is all happening in plenty of time for a review, and audit, of how they have improved the lives and services for their constituents, well before the next GE.

Whitewavemark2

Councils have a legal obligation to provide certain services.

What has happened over the austerity years since 2010, is that cuts to the LA funding from government and restraints on the precept has left them so severely short of money that they have real and existential crises in providing the legal services let alone any vanity spending..

And as someone mentioned above, every council is not the same regarding income from either the government or the precept.

Absolutely!

silverbrooks yes

It will be really interesting to see what these people achieve.
If I had to guess there will be a few inflammatory headlines and then the whole thing will fizzle out, but not before at least one of the DOGGING team are exposed as an out and out wrong un.

Fried in his Musk costume? Who on earth takes these people seriously?

This is doomed to fail in terms of providing better public services. it is just an exercise in performance politics.

Looking at the 2025/26 Kent CC budget, where will Reform find substantial cuts when 73% of it is earmarked for adult social care and children’s services - which is little different to other councils.

The remainder is spent on waste services, public health, highways, transport and community services.

Reform say:

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.

By that token they can’t cut waste services or highways because bins will be emptied even less frequently and potholes won’t be fixed.

Transport would be concessionary bus passes. Perhaps they’ll stop funding passes for the eldery and the disabled. Or cut some bus services altogether.

Public health covers things like public toilets, pest control, inspection of eating establishment for food safety and so on. Which would people prefer? Fewer toilets, more rats or more food poisoning?

Community services are things like parks, sports facilities, swimming pools, libraries and theatres. Do you want green spaces maintained where you can walk your dog or take children to play, take children for a swim or to play sports or borrow books free of charge to develop their reading skills or to take them to the panto?

Do doubt some cost savings will be found through chiselling service providers but ultimately you get what you pay for.

Kent CC budget says: We provide a huge range of essential services to Kent residents, spending over £2.6 billion (excluding schools) each year.

There are over 700,000 households in Kent. If Reform could find £5 million pounds to cut which was passed on to the taxpayer, it would reduce council tax bills by about £5 a year for the average household. Do people really want to see vital services cut to save less than tuppence a day?

It would be peanuts anyway. My county council spend 2.5 million a day on adult social care and a similar amount on children’s services. It would be shameful to make cuts to either.

What are these vanity projects and wasteful schemes, I'd like to hear some examples please.

fancythat

Whitewavemark2

So who is doing the audit?

What security must they pass.

What access do they have to sensitive information?

Can businesses be confident that contracts with the council are kept confidential?

Can individuals be sure that personal information is kept confident.

What access will they have to the pension department? The future investment plans etc.

Councils and their departments hold probably more total information about people than any other public run body.

Listening to Reform, absolutely nothing they say or do fills me with the confidence that they have either sufficient knowledge or judgement to carry out an audit of their own members let alone the biggest LA in the country.

You make it sound like audits should never happen.

Audits at councils happen all the time! From internal auditing by accountants, to audits by HMRC, to audits by external accountants.

Just not some bod that the Reform loons have dragged in.

Cossy

FriedGreenTomatoes2

My bugbear is procurement issues. A friend worked in local authority and 25 years ago she went to the local admin manager saying she needed a desk lamp and had found one in Ryman’s (her local store) for a tenner (which included VAT).

Oh no, she was told. Shecould only order one through the Council’s contracted supplier so was given a very thick full colour glossy catalogue.

Guess what? The same desk lamp as the one in Rymans was £85 (not including VAT).

I’ve always remembered this illustration of how money truly is wasted. There will be a lot of waste uncovered I bet.

I absolutely agree with you re procurement.

This does need looking at and improving.

Surely the problem is systems and accountability. Once a member of staff starts buying little bits and pieces 'on the cheap', the door is opened for fraud. Payments from petty cash and slowly items increase in value and then mysteriously disappear, either because they were never real anyway or because they are sold on.
This is why professional, accredited auditors insist on purchases from validated sources accompanied by authorised invoices that can be tracked.

Councils have a legal obligation to provide certain services.

What has happened over the austerity years since 2010, is that cuts to the LA funding from government and restraints on the precept has left them so severely short of money that they have real and existential crises in providing the legal services let alone any vanity spending..

And as someone mentioned above, every council is not the same regarding income from either the government or the precept.

Whitewavemark2

So who is doing the audit?

What security must they pass.

What access do they have to sensitive information?

Can businesses be confident that contracts with the council are kept confidential?

Can individuals be sure that personal information is kept confident.

What access will they have to the pension department? The future investment plans etc.

Councils and their departments hold probably more total information about people than any other public run body.

Listening to Reform, absolutely nothing they say or do fills me with the confidence that they have either sufficient knowledge or judgement to carry out an audit of their own members let alone the biggest LA in the country.

You make it sound like audits should never happen.

Unless you take the time and trouble to actually look at and understand a) the role of local councillors and b) the way councils are funded and statutory services, it’s almost impossible to state “all councils waste money”

Local Councillors are specifically voted in to represent and support the interests of their ward and the people living in them.

They already keep an eye on finances by their presence on committees such as scrutiny and finance.

Brand new councillors, especially those with zero knowledge of their remit, responsibilities and authority should be attending induction and training, learning from experienced councillors, learning by attending various committees, it’s a huge learning process.

I’m extremely glad I don’t live in Kent!