Reform UK’s flagship council has been accused of “blatant lying” after its claim of nearly £40m of savings on net zero was found to be based on speculative projects with no documentation.
Kent County Council, which has an annual budget of £2.5bn, is one of 10 in full control of Nigel Farage’s party and is a test case for whether the rebel party can govern effectively.
Soon after being elected, the council’s leader, Linden Kemkaran, promised to bring a “laser-like focus on getting value for money” to the party’s “Local Government Efficiency Wing”, or Dolge.
The council’s leadership said it had identified savings of £100m, of which £39.5m came from two net zero-related projects: £32m by scrapping a program to make properties more environmentally friendly and £7.5m by not electrifying vehicles by 2030.
After Kemkaran announced these at a council meeting last July, Labor MP for Kent Polly Billington requested details of the clear savings through a Freedom of Information request. Months of war with the council.
The two projects were documented in two lines in the “potential capital projects” section of the council’s 2025-26 budget plans, but ultimately answered that they had no business cases or identified funding.
Billington said the response showed that Kemkaran’s claims about savings were a “blatant lie.”
“These aborted net zero projects never existed and the amazing £39.5m savings figure she is spinning is entirely made up by her.
Billington accused Kemkaran of trying to claim the “fantastic” savings credit for political reasons.
“The reality is that Kent County Council has no plan to make savings for reform, and now they are lying to the public rather than admit that their council is in a mess and they are raising council tax to cover up their mess. Linden Kemkaran needs to stop these false statistics and focus on providing better services to the people of Kent.”
The Council rejected this assessment, stating that only two lines in the annex to the budget document related to the projects, and that they were not approved or subject to a business case, were a “future cost-saving measure” and therefore legitimate to claim savings.
The row came after one of the reform councilors allegedly discovered major savings at the council He admitted that The party found no significant waste when it took over the local power last year.
Paul Chamberlain, who headed Kent’s Elon Musk-style local government efficiency department, later apologized for a “lapse of judgement” with comments and stepped down from the role.
A Kent spokesman said: “Kent County Council unequivocally rejects inappropriate suggestions, fabrication or attempts to mislead. As we have already made clear in previous correspondence and our FOI response, the figures for forward-looking projections in the published budget book relate to projects that have not been approved or designed.
“The two items cited are listed in the Potential Capital Projects section – high-profile, unfunded and unapproved opportunities for which there are no business cases. Local authorities routinely include such indicative items in medium-term planning. The decision not to progress them is a future cost-containment measure, and therefore does not require council borrowing.”
The Reform leadership in Kent sent out a separate statement: “Only in Westminster bubble politics can waste be curbed before fraud becomes fraud. Reform has prevented bad spending and we will not apologize for it.
“This story is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of how public finance works and a deliberate attempt to mislead readers … Polly Billington’s claim that these projects ‘never existed’ is patently false.”
Late last year, Kemkaran hired paid political consultant Michael Hadwen. move Denied The Liberal Democrat group on the council is a waste of money. They also expressed concern over Hadwen’s previous social media posts in which he supported Enoch Powell’s ideas about immigration.
