Reform is likely to raise the Kent Council tax after the cost engine stumbled

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The local authority in Kent is likely to raise the council tax rates next year, as Report UK fought to find great savings under a campaign to reduce costs inspired by Elon Musk.

Kent was one of 10 councils of English councils seized by the right -wing Nigel Farag Party in a group of victories in the local elections in May this year. He pledged to provide “a lot of money” by canceling the “wasteful” spending.

But Diane Morton, a member of the Cabinet for Reform for Social Care for Adults at the Kent County Council, told the Financial Times that the services in Kent were already “to the bare bones.”

“We have more demand than ever and grow,” she said, stressing that she does not think that access to these services should be limited. “We just want more money.”

As with many local authorities in England, the largest part of Kent’s budget is spent on adults and children, as well as children with special educational needs, which together constituted about 50 percent of its annual expenses of 2.5 billion pounds.

All councils have a legal duty to balance their books and will determine the budgets of next year in February or March. Before that, most councils in England are expected to increase the council tax by 5 percent, which is the maximum allowed.

“I think it will be 5 percent.”

The BBC’s former journalist Linden Kimkran said that Kent was a party to test the national policies of the party and “the store window through which everyone sees how the reform government can look.” She refused to say whether the council tax would be raised, but other members of the Reform Council said they wanted to avoid hitting 5 percent.

The experience of reform in Kent highlights some of the obstacles that it may face in the national government if it won the upcoming general elections and tries to follow up on its pledge to divide taxes and public spending.

“Everyone believed that we have arrived and there will be these huge costs that we can cut, but not only there,” said one of the senior cabinet members in Kent. They said the priority was to improve services.

Farage has created a team to reform government competence, – similar to the “DOGE” initiative in the MUSK in the Trump administration, to find savings in Kent and other party -controlled councils.

The team, which is run by the head of politics in politics, did not do a detailed work in part in part due to the tensions of the unleashed party members to reach the council’s sensitive information.

Instead, Kent “Dolge” – “The Local Government Efficiency Department” has created by many cabinet members – they say it is independent of the main office of reform.

Kimkran said: “If we have and when we get a legal framework in a place allows (Doge) to enter, and if you need it, I can pick up the phone and say, we have found this, we need to help you,” Kimkran said.

But she added: “We are achieving such great progress anyway, I do not think we need it.”

Dolge claims that she has so far set 40 million pounds in savings for four years. This includes giving up a program worth 30 million pounds to make homes more efficient in using energy and mixing a new fleet of electric cars.

The opposition leaders say housing promotions will provide money in the long run and that the current car fleet of the council is not suitable for service.

During the summer, Youssef said that the wasted spending in the Kent Council, which was previously managed by the conservatives, included paying television licenses to asylum seekers. The council said it is the duty to support asylum unacceptable to search for children.

One of the senior members of the Fourth Reform Cabinet in Kent said that the asylum system was not an area looking to achieve costs, not the least of which is that these expenses are covered by the Ministry of Interior.

“We do not look at asylum at all … not in our budget,” they said.

A member of the Council of Ministers added that a challenge to the use of local hotels to accommodate asylum seekers “not on our radar”, although Faraj says that the reform councils will seek to do so after the Supreme Court has given a temporary order On an asylum in EPPing In August. The irritable order was canceled in this case, which was submitted by the local council, upon appeal.

The person said that the great focus on the Dolge unit in Kent is to reduce the debt heap of 700 million pounds by avoiding spending on major capital projects in the future. Last week, the council announced that it had taken.Brave and important“The decision to pay 50 million pounds from its debts, and to provide 670,000 pounds on interest payments annually over the next forty years.

But Anthony Hook, the leader of the liberal Democrats in Kent, said that Barclays approached the council, indicating directly that he paid the loan, as he presented a 10 percent discount. “This was not the result of any reform policy,” he said. Barclays refused to comment.

“During the elections, they said to vote for us to reform asylum and now they discovered … that the boycott has no role in asylum and you will not be able to reduce the council tax,” he said. “They entered into power, believing that they would find a lot of waste to cut them, and they have not selected anything.”