‘Simply making it up’ — Reform-led council invented supposed £40m saving

Reform-led Kent council — one of the far-right party’s ‘flagships’ — has been exposed inventing a claim that it had saved tens of millions as part of its ‘DOLGE’ ‘efficiency’ drive. The programme is supposed to be based on the Trump-Musk ‘Department of Government Efficiency’ (DOGE), with the addition of ‘local’. But it follows the DOGE model in different ways from what we’re supposed to think.

Just as DOGE claimed huge savings that it then had to remove from its supposed ‘achievements’, Reform’s claim that DOLGE had saved almost £40m from Kent council’s budget has turned out to be made up. So clearly made up, in fact, that the council’s DOLGE lead Matthew Fraser-Moate has resigned because the council:

had not actually made any cuts.

DOLGE-IE stuff from Reform

Moate’s colleague Paul Chamberlain, another councillor involved in Reform’s DOLGE team, also quit. In January 2025, he had admitted publicly that there:

just weren’t big cuts to make, because services had already been hacked away for years and years.

Well duh.

The claims have now been dismissed as a “blatant lie” after the savings — supposedly made on ‘net zero’, of course — were found to be entirely based on “hypothetical” projects whose existence is completely undocumented.

The £39.5m figure, part of a claimed £100m saving, was made up (literally!) of £32m from scrapping a scheme reducing properties’ environmental impact and £7.5m by not switching to electric vehicles. After months evading transparency, the council eventually admitted that the projects didn’t exist but were “potential capital projects” the council might have done in future but had not allocated any funding to.

Despite the admissions, a council spokesperson said that the council “categorically rejects any suggestion of impropriety, fabrication of figures or attempts to mislead”.

While making up savings, Reform had been ‘spaffing’ large sums on parking spaces for its councillors — £600k.

Green party Kent councillor Stuart Jeffrey told the Canary he had been pursuing the matter for ages but there is “no record of savings”. Worse, Reform has added to its spendthrift ways by creating a new cabinet position who will “burden” the council’s strained finances:

I’ve been asking the finance team for the detailed impact of DOLGE and there is no record of savings. Reform are simply making it up.

Worse still is that they are doubling down on their personal pocket lining approach by appointing another cabinet member who will deliver nothing while being a burden himself on the council finances.

Featured image via KentLiveNews