On Thursday last week, history was made at KCC.
The first-ever Reform UK budget was presented in Full Council, debated to within an inch of its life, and then voted through just after 6pm.
The erratic thermostat in the council chamber, already set to ‘warm’ at 9.30am, rose to ‘uncomfortably tropical’ as the day wore on and the opposition tried, and largely failed, to land blows on me and my team.
Twelve opposition amendments had been tabled to our proposed budget, and as procedure dictates, we debated them one by one.
My Cabinet and I had spent the previous weekend pouring over the amendments, discussing and testing to see if any of them, in our view, held merit. We decided that none did.
On the whole, they were repetitive and proposed only two sources of ‘extra’ money to spend on other proposals; either getting rid of the role of Political Assistant, which was democratically voted for in Full Council on December 18, or raising council tax to the maximum allowed of 4.99%.
As far as employing a Political Assistant in my office goes – the £49,000 salary of which is covered by natural wastage elsewhere in the staff structure – it’s actually a money-saving measure as it means I no longer have to waste time dealing with the unrelenting, around-the-clock media attention and can actually spend my working hours being a good councillor and providing leadership and vision to the council.
Interestingly, Cllr Anthony Hook, the Lib Dem leader of the opposition, has consistently refused to confirm or deny whether he will be taking on a Political Assistant, to which he is also entitled under the constitution.
In December’s meeting, he deflected by making reference to the Cold War’s US–Soviet Union promise of ‘mutually assured destruction’ whereby if one side had a nuclear weapon then the other side needed one too. Historic but slightly OTT for a county council, no?
When asked again directly in the Chamber last Thursday, Cllr Hook appeared very uncomfortable indeed.
It seems the opposition likes using it as a political stick with which to beat Reform UK. Let’s see if their ‘virtue’ holds out.
As far as raising council tax to 4.99%, as I made clear in my speech to the Chamber, raising taxation should never be the starting point for spending plans.
We worked exceptionally hard last year to find extra in-year savings of £14m to fill the £10m shortfall caused by not raising council tax to the full extent.
Even though Reform UK never promised we would cut council tax (we clearly said we’d ‘cut waste and lower taxes’ on our leaflets), it was always my intention not to raise it by more than was absolutely necessary – in this case, 3.99% – to enable us to remain solvent and to provide vital services.
Public money is not there to be used for sloppy political accounting. The Tories seemed content to carry on heavily taxing the residents of Kent, rather than looking to fix KCC’s spending at source.
Adult Social Care forms the largest spend in the budget so as part of our getting to grips with the massive £49m overspend left to us by the previous administration, we pulled it apart.
We discovered to our horror that Kent was paying up to 80% more than neighbouring counties for residential, social and nursing care. How was this allowed to continue year after year?
Where was the responsible attention to detail on spending residents’ money? Who kept just signing off these invoices?
Public money is not there to be used for sloppy political accounting
Nearly 50% of KCC’s entire budget was being spent on just 4% of Kent’s population.
This clearly could not continue, so we very swiftly, made difficult, but vital changes in how much we pay providers, and I’m delighted to report that the overspend has already started to come down by £1m in each just of the last two forecasts of this financial year.
Obviously, this is just one example of how we are doing things differently, and, of course, we still have a long way to go.
But I want to reassure you, it can be done and we are doing it.
The proof is now there. Our opponents hate it because they would rather see us fail and KCC suffer as a result, than for us to succeed and turn things around for the people of Kent.
