Council tax hikes loom in areas run by Reform

Last April, householders in West Northamptonshire were leafleted by Reform UK warning that their local council was broken, with a 23% increase in council tax in five years and debt interest payments claimed to be running at £65,000 a day.

A party leaflet featuring a picture of Nigel Farage pledged that Reform could fix local government. It said the party would “reduce council waste to help cut your taxes”. Eight months on from that leafleting push, the Reform-led council proposes to increase its council tax by nearly 5% and is heading for a £50m funding gap by 2030. It has lost its chief executive and failed to find a replacement – despite the £200,000 salary and an offer of working from home on some days.

Reform is accused by opposition parties of misleading voters with its claims of council tax cuts and big savings to be made by reducing waste. The Observer has found:

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  Nine councils controlled by Reform have total borrowings of more than £4bn, with debts continuing to rise in some areas;

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  Reform is trying to balance the books in its council areas with hikes in charges of up to 55%;

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  Despite claims that a national Doge unit would uncover huge savings, the team has failed to gain access to key councils, with town hall bosses putting a ban on any internal financial data examined by the unit being used for political purposes.

The council proposes to help balance the budget by raising car parking charges and garden waste collection fees. It also wants to increase fees for people who pay their own way in its council-run care homes by up to 55%.

“Council debt is increasing,” said Daniel Lister, leader of the opposition and Conservative group at the council. “There were big promises before the election, but no homework was done and ordinary people are paying the price.”

A month after the leaflet dropped on doormats, Reform took control of nine councils – and won the majority of seats at Doncaster council, which has a Labour mayor – pledging to cut taxes.

Despite the claims, none of these councils to date has announced plans to freeze council tax. Three authorities so far including West Northamptonshire have proposed the maximum 4.99% rises permitted by law unless special permission is granted by central government.

Jonathan Carr-West, chief executive of the Local Government Information Unit, a non-profit membership body, said Reform failed to find the expected waste and there had been a “contact with reality”.

“Successive coalition and Conservative administrations cut central government funding to councils by about 40%,” he said. “Councils have spent 15 years cutting fat and looking for efficiencies. They are now incredibly lean.”

Reform claimed an Elon Musk-style Doge unit would sweep into Reform councils and cut wasteful spending. But its Doge failed to secure the data-sharing agreements to examine finances in councils run by the party, with Zia Yusuf, head of the unit, replaced by Richard Tice in October.

Reform-run Worcestershire council is consulting to increase its council tax by up to 10%. It has proposed scrapping the building of a £63m secondary school in Worcester and ditched plans for the £12m upgrade of Redditch railway station.

Reform has “come in under the false premise of cutting and reducing waste”, said Adam Kent, leader of the Conservative group at the county council. “What they’ve done is cut services and they are now looking to put up council tax by the biggest amount we’ve ever seen.”

Ed Kimberley, a Labour city councillor in Worcester, said the national Doge unit had effectively been shelved: “They have had to basically mothball the whole thing.” Worcestershire county council has now appointed its own cabinet member to take responsibility for costs and efficiency.

Other Reform authorities are finalising the proposed increases in council tax. Lincolnshire county council is consulting on council tax rises of up to nearly 5%. Kent county council proposed an increase of almost 4%.

West Northamptonshire council said it was committed to fairness in provision of care services. A small number of residents had been paying “legacy rates” below market standard but the rises would only affect self-funding residents with sufficient capital assets.

Officials at Reform now claim that no party spokesperson or authorised literature promised a reduction in council tax. A Reform spokesperson said: “Our provisional figures show that residents living in Reform areas are likely to see lower average tax rises compared to their Conservative, Labour and Lib Dem counterparts, with some even seeing real-terms tax cuts.

“Reform councils made over £300m of savings in their first six months, demonstrating exactly why local government needs Reform.”

Photograph by PA Images/Alamy