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The team set up by Reform UK to slash spending in the local authorities it now runs across England already appears to be falling apart.
On Monday, the party’s flagship council in Kent was the first to receive a visit from the team of self-appointed ‘auditors’ sent in by the party to supposedly slash the authority’s “wasteful” spending. Within days, the grouping has suffered two senior resignations.
The Reform HQ team visited the council to meet officers and party representatives, including the council leader – led by (then) Reform chair Zia Yusuf. He conducted media interviews in the council chamber, despite not being elected there, nor, it would appear, being a Kent resident.
Zusuf quit the party on Thursday saying he no longer believes, “working to get a Reform Government elected is a good use of my time”.
Nathaniel Fried, hired to run Reform’s DOGE program, also resigned just a week after being appointed to the role. He was one of a handful of Reform ‘auditors’ – including Brexiteer Arron Banks – present at Kent County Council (KCC) on Monday.
One opposition source said Yusuf and Fried were “strutting around like they owned the place”.
The new administration at Kent County Council (KCC) has established a “DOLGE” (Department of Local Government Efficiency) initiative involving unelected party volunteers, appointing a cabinet member with that remit, alongside the separate ‘DOGE’ team of officials and activists from HQ sent in on Monday.
But it has been rocked by the resignations, soon after its launch, which came after Yusuf’s role as party chair was reportedly side-lined in recent weeks.
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His resignation came hours after he criticised newly-elected Reform MP Sarah Pochin’s call at PMQs for a ban on burqas as “dumb” and not party policy.
Yusuf, a practicing Muslim, was reportedly “very upset” by the burqa comments and public backing of Pochin from MPs Lee Anderson and Richard Tice.
Kent Green party councillor Stuart Heaver told Byline Times: “Mr Yusef was only holding court in the Council Chamber on Monday extolling the virtues of DOGE – now he isn’t even a member of Reform UK. It’s a complete shambles and the residents of Kent deserve a lot better.”
The Kent council leader, Reform’s Linden Kemkaran, recently wrote a stark warning to Kent County Council staff alongside Yusuf – saying anyone who might “obstruct” party officials’ demands for information would be considered guilty of “gross misconduct” and sacked – despite the partisan team having no apparent legal status.
‘Misinformation’ Claim
Shortly after the ‘DOGE’ visit, but before his resignation, Yusuf claimed in a tweet that KCC had tendered a four year recruitment contract at a cost of £350m.
He wrote: “[It’s] £87.5 million per year of taxpayer money being spent on ‘advertising vacancies’ and ‘interviewing’ people. That’s a staggering 22% of their annual payroll. What a racket.”
However, another opposition councillor, who declined to be named, said the story was “complete misinformation”.
“It only goes to underline the concerns many councillors have about giving unelected volunteers with no knowledge of the council’s services access to large volumes of sensitive data.”
Political commentator Bearly Politics noted on X that the contract was “a national framework agreement, hosted by Kent but open to every public body in the UK – councils, NHS trusts, schools, civil service arms-lengths, the works”.
“The £350m (or £500m across all lots) is the maximum potential value across all participating bodies over four years. It’s a ceiling, not a spend. And it’s not just for “advertising vacancies and interviewing people.
“The scope includes permanent, interim and executive search, vetting, onboarding, compliance and payroll, [and] roles across IT, legal, social care, construction, education, and more.”
Further Chaos
Concerns have also been raised by opposition councillors about unelected individuals potentially having access to large volumes of sensitive information, as it was unclear what the legal status of the Reform auditors would be.
One possibility was that senior council managers would require the volunteers to become temporary employees or formal contractors to access sensitive council data, though Reform claims they would be unpaid.
Meanwhile, a third of KCC meetings have been cancelled or postponed, amid claims the new administration “don’t know what they’re doing.”
Byline Times understands that the Kent Council leader has missed both meetings of councillor party group leaders since the May elections. None of the five Swale Borough Council Reform councillors reportedly attended a recent Local Government Reorganisation briefing.
Kent Labour MP Polly Billington, elected for East Thanet in 2024, said: “Reform are pitching to be a party of Government, but the utter shambles we have seen so far on Kent County Council will be of huge concern to voters who want to be sure our roads, buses, and children’s services are in good hands.
“More than a third of council meetings have already been cancelled this month, where vitally important decisions are made for our county, and two of the five members of ‘DOGE for Kent’ have quit after less than a week. Reform needs to get a grip and bring an end to this unprecedented chaos.”
Opposition Senses Weakness
Following Yusuf’s resignation, Kent Green Group put out a statement saying: “Over the past two weeks, the Green Group has voiced growing concerns about the suspension of key committee meetings and the announcement of a DOGE made up largely of party members and unelected volunteers.
“Both of these developments risk reducing transparency, undermining scrutiny and eroding public confidence in council decision-making.”
Leader of the Green Group Rich Lehmann added: “This bizarre and unexpected move feels like it could go one of two ways. On the one hand, the controversial flag policy [taking down Pride flags from council offices] and the rushed ‘DOGE’ announcement both appeared on Mr Yusuf’s Twitter feed before anywhere else, so there was a sense that, despite being an unelected bureuacrat, he was very much running things at KCC instead of the locally elected representatives.
“What’s not clear is whether any of his interventions were also behind the significant number of meeting cancellations we’ve seen over the past couple of weeks.”
Lehmann said the council now appears to be at a “crossroads”.
The naming of the Reform audit unit was doubly unlucky as its inventor, Elon Musk, fell out spectacularly on his platform, X, with President Trump on Thursday, claiming the latter is implicated in unreleased files on the deceased US paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
Company Capers
Meanwhile, the two key companies behind Reform UK – the corporate entities that govern the party, led by Nigel Farage – have swapped names, for as-yet unknown reasons.
Accountant Professor Richard Murphy told Byline Times that name swapping is “not that uncommon between related businesses” and suggested “what they’re trying to do is present the top organisation as if it is the real party”.
He added: “But, it also reveals deep insecurity about their structure. They know people are watching them. They know they are vulnerable on this issue. They know they lack accountability. And by doing this they are, in effect, drawing attention to their own insecurity.”
In Leicestershire, also now run by Reform, an opposition councillor, who declined to be named, told Byline Times the party had been “quite vocal in promising not just council tax freezes but reductions”.
“It’s quite clear the council would go bankrupt if that went ahead.”
Reform now runs 12 councils in England, covering over eight million people. Kent County Council and Reform UK have been contacted for comment.
Are you in one of Reform UK’s council areas, and following what’s happening in the administration? Get in touch, in confidence, with any story tips or insights: josiah@bylinetimes.com
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