[1andrew1]

Farage's Brexit fantasy was buried years ago. Now it looks like his cost-saving fantasy has followed the same inevitable journey.

Reform likely to raise Kent council tax after cost-cutting drive falters

Nigel Farage’s party promised to revive local authority finances by slashing wasteful spending

Kent was one of 10 English councils that Nigel Farage’s rightwing populist party seized in a swath of victories at local elections in May this year. He vowed to save “a lot of money” by abolishing “wasteful” spending.

But Diane Morton, Reform’s cabinet member for adult social care on Kent county council, told the Financial Times that services in Kent were already “down to the bare bones”.

“We’ve got more demand than ever before and it’s growing,” she said, stressing she did not believe access to those services should be limited. “We just want more money.”

As with many local authorities in England, the bulk of Kent’s budget is spent on adult and children’s social care, as well as on children with special education needs, which together accounted for about 50 per cent of its £2.5bn annual expenditure.

All councils have a legal duty to balance their books and will set next year’s budgets in February or March. Ahead of that, most councils in England are expected to increase council tax by 5 per cent, the maximum allowed.

“I think it’s going to be 5 per cent,” Morton said of where Kent county council would land on tax rises, adding that every 1 per cent increase would equate to an extra £10mn raised.

Reform’s experience in Kent highlights some of the obstacles it may face in national government if it won the next general election and attempted to follow through on its pledge to slash taxes and public spending.

“Everyone thought we’d come in and there were going to be these huge costs we could cut away but there just aren’t,” said a third senior Reform cabinet member in Kent. They said the priority was improving services.

https://www.ft.com/content/277c6a95-...b-b757693955ca