A Reform Directory Directory Council is reportedly set to raise the Council’s tax rates next year despite cost -saving measures inspired by those introduced by Elon Musk in the United States.
Nigel Farage had promised to save “a lot of money” after his party gained control of Kent County Council at the local elections in May this year.
Two months later, in July, the Council introduced a Local Government Efficiency Department (Dolge), modeled on Musk’s Doge in the United States, which council leader Linden Kemkaran claimed they had identified £ 40m of potential savings.
A report to the council members said the savings would ensure that the Council was able to operate within its budget while continuing to “provide the services that residents appreciate the most and those required to be delivered by the law”.
However, the authority’s new adult social care manager Diane Morton has suggested this week an increase in residents’ council tax bills when she warned that services in the county were “down to the bare bones”.
Diane Morton told Financial times: “We’ve got more demand than ever before, and it grows, we just want more money.”
While Mrs. Kemkaran has refused to say if the Council’s tax rates will be raised, Mrs. Morton said she thought the increase would be five percent, the maximum allowed.
About 50 percent of KENT’s annual budget of $ 2.5 billion Pounds are used on adult and children’s social care as well as on children with special education needs.
Labor MP for East Thanet Polly Billington has accused the heads of authority of giving “huge promises of savings and then not finding anyone because they don’t know what they’re talking about.”
“That’s what they are doing in local authorities, and that’s what they would do against Britain,” she added.
Liberal Democratic Deputy Deputy Daisy Cooper said, “It turns out that they crawl the notes from Dodgy American tech billionaires are no way to run a piece of advice.”
However, a Reform UK Kent spokesman said the council had done “fantastic work” to reduce the debt by £ 66 million. In five months, despite council papers showing that it is facing an excess £ 27.9 million.
The party’s experience in Kent is a reflection of the obstacles that Farage would face if he was elected prime minister, which includes the reform’s repeated promise to reduce taxes and cut public spending.
Mrs. Kemkaran said that the management of Kent served as a “shop window, through which everyone will see what a reform government can look like”.
A spokesman for British British Kent said the council has a new “no more borrowing” policy since this year’s vote.
“Our KCC team has already done some great work to clean up the mess that Kent Conservatives have left and reduce the county council’s debt by £ 66 million in their first five months in office,” he said.
“Most of it has come from savings as a result of their Dolge (Department of Local Government Efficiency) unit.
“This includes implementation of a” no more borrowing “policy that will reduce their debt by another £ 33 million by March 2026, Scratch KCC’s net zero renewable energy program to save £ 32 million over four years and stop the move to a new council building that has avoided another 14 billion belt.”