Plans show £60m ‘gap’ in Reform council’s budget even with council tax increase
Kent County Council was won by Reform at local elections in May, when their candidates promised to cut council spending and keep taxes low.
Reform UK’s flagship local authority’s debt will increase by tens of millions of pounds, even if it puts up council tax by the maximum possible amount, according to a leaked forecast of next year’s finances.
Kent County Council (KCC) was won by Reform at local elections in May, when their candidates promised to cut council spending and keep taxes low.
Soon after taking power, the administration set up an Elon Musk-style savings unit called the Department of Local Government Efficiency (DOLGE).
A leaked slideshow for opposition councillors, seen by the Press Association, shows there is a £60 million gap in KCC’s finances for 2026-27.
Under the plans for next year set out by the previous Tory administration, that unresolved gap was £20.1 million.
That plan, shown to a councillor in mid-November, also currently includes a full 5% increase in council tax, to keep the gap at £60 million.
For a band D property in Kent, this would mean an increase of £84.56 per year from £1,691.19 in 2025-26 to £1775.75.
In a full council meeting at Sessions House, in Maidstone, on Thursday, former Reform councillor Bill Barrett said he had been told “the gap” may increase further, up to £100 million, in the new year.
The current plan does not factor in money KCC will receive from the UK Government thanks to the fair funding review which KCC leader Linden Kemkaran has said will provide them with an 8% increase in overall funding.
However, even if that significant increase in funding plugs the gap, Reform’s new plan for 2026-27 will still see council expenditure increase by £31 million from what the previous Tory administration had planned.
It is understood that the majority of that excess spending is on the increased price of adult social care.
In KCC’s search for savings, providers of some elements of adult social care have been told their funding will be “hugely cut” in three months.
Jim Dickson, Labour MP for Dartford, said he had spoken to “navigation and wellbeing services” providers which expect to be affected.
Such services help old and vulnerable adults “on the edge of care” with contact and support, without a full care package, and a study by Involve, an organisation providing that type of care, found that it led to “significant reductions” in A&E attendance and need for acute care.
“Kent are obviously claiming that this is an efficiency and something that they can do without huge service effect but that’s quite clearly wrong,” Mr Dickson said.
At Sessions House on Thursday, leader of the opposition Antony Hook said the fair funding review was a “sticking plaster on a gaping wound”.
The Liberal Democrat councillor added: “In the absence of a budget, everything is in danger.
“Everything is in danger from a Reform administration that doesn’t value our public services, doesn’t value the people we work for and certainly doesn’t value residents independently.”
There was clear frustration among all the opposition groups, that a draft of KCC’s budget is yet to be provided.
The leaked briefing is one option for the Reform administration, who are now expected to present their draft budget at the start of January.
It will then be discussed through various meetings before the council determines the budget on February 12 2026.
Mr Barrett said: “I have extreme concern about the way the budget process is unfolding, and the likelihood of severe cuts to public services because of the budget gap KCC is now faced with.”
KCC and the Reform group have been contacted for comment.
