In one of the most dramatic nights in recent British political history, Reform UK took control of 10 councils this month – and with it the power to spend several billion pounds on 10 million people.
But now that the aftershocks of what Nigel Farage has called the “Reform-quake” are subsiding, the reality of the hard yards of local government are starting to emerge.
The councils where Reform is now in power have the same problems found in local authorities across the country – including financial pressures from social care and children’s special needs provision, demands to fix potholes in the roads and rows about accommodation for asylum seekers.
They are difficulties that immediately raise questions over how easily Reform council leaders will be able to deliver on their party’s headline promise of DOGE-like efficiency savings.
Some of the councils also have the extra demands of looming local government reorganisation, which could add further to costs and create political headaches and battles with Keir Starmer’s government.
The political stakes for Reform are high in these councils – because this is the electorate’s chance to see what happens after they win and get hold of the levers of power.
How the party performs in local government over the next few years could well determine their chances of making significant national gains in the 2029 general election.
Here, issue by issue, is what Reform will have to deal with at a local level to get there.
The downside of going from zero to 677 councillors in one go – in the seats that were up for election on May 1 – is the collective lack of experience of this turquoise county hall army.
In Kent, for example, only six out of the 57 newly elected Reform councillors have any previous political experience. There are a handful in other councils who have, however, served as Conservatives or with other parties before defecting to Reform. But they are the exception.
Reform’s central party is apparently alive to this lack of time served: HQ is “double vetting” dozens of councillors who want to serve in cabinet posts, The i Paper has been told.
This means that they were vetted first to stand for election and then again to serve in cabinets, in a sign of how seriously Reform central wants to use their new powers.
It also underlines the extent to which Farage’s circle want to keep some control from the centre.
One local government insider – from a rival party – said: “They talk a lot about freedom of speech but they will struggle to even sneeze unless Nigel Farage says they can.”
Another council source said Reform could, however, rely on the wealth of experience of their chief executives and other permanent staff, to get the job done.
“Farage has previously questioned the high pay of council chief executives, but he may be thanking them at the end of this and realising they are good value for money,” the source said.
A Liberal Democrat MP predicted that Reform would discover that local government is a “lot more important and a lot more boring” than they thought, adding: “I think it’s safe to say they are going to be a bit of a shit show.”
Councils with budgets on the edge
Reform has not been short of bold statements on its way to power. And one of the party’s new councillors has declared that wants to see his authority starting to make a profit.
But Dan Price, Derbyshire County Council’s new member for Ilkeston North, has admitted it will not be easy.
“The council is on the verge of bankruptcy and they reckon within six months Derbyshire County Council will be bankrupt,” he said in a video on Facebook in the wake of his party’s victory. “So it is egg on our face, we have inherited an empire of dirt.
“So, no matter what we do, most likely it will blow up in our face and we will be to blame, but I think not. We will try and save this sinking ship and then we shall start trying to make a profitable [sic] and start trying to provide good services.”
In fact Reform will have to deal with much bigger financial problems in some of the authorities it now runs.
Even before election day, the budgets of Durham and Lincolnshire county councils were operating at minimum reserves thresholds for the current financial year – meaning they have already eaten into rainy day funds up to the limit of what the local government finance watchdog recommends.
A third, Worcestershire – where Reform is the largest party but no one has overall control – is one of 30 English councils that had to receive a government bailout earlier this year.
While this does not mean these 30 authorities have to declare bankruptcy – known as a section 114 notice – it shows that they are experiencing serious financial difficulties and may have to cut back on non-statutory services like garden waste collections, grass-cutting and the funding of community centres and local theatres.
Two more Reform-controlled authorities – North Northamptonshire and West Northamptonshire – were created after Northamptonshire council was abolished in 2021 after effectively going bankrupt. While their two administrations have worked to bring budgets under control, the purse strings are still tight.
One of the biggest expenditures for Reform’s councils will be adult and children’s social care and special educational needs provision. But as this is earmarked as statutory funding, whoever is in control of the council cannot cut it.
A source in a council now run by Reform said that demand for spending on social care and children’s services there had “skyrocketed” over the past few years, adding: “We increased capacity quite a bit, but needed to go further. It is not an issue where they can save their way out of a problem.”
In Derbyshire, Dan Price’s comments, first reported by the Derby Telegraph, now appear to have been deleted. But Alex Dale, the new Conservative group leader who served in the council’s previous administration, said the authority had been “going through a very difficult period financially – we’ve always been totally open and honest about it”.
But he added: “The challenges across social care in particular have been long-running, and unless Reform UK have spent the last five to 10 years with their fingers in their ears, it’s hard to believe they weren’t aware of these sector-wide challenges.”
Jason Smithers, outgoing Conservative leader of North Northamptonshire council, said he wished his successors in Reform the “best of luck” in running the authority, adding: “This landslide victory, however, comes with a hefty dose of responsibility and a whole heap of challenges.”
Reform’s MPs and councillors have already pledged to implement a programme of council cuts on what they say is unnecessary expenditure – including things like diversity and inclusion roles (known as DEI), net zero spending and staff pay.
This is one of the issues that seems to have gone down well on the doorstep, with voters demanding that their council tax is spent more wisely.
But a source in one of the local authorities now run by Reform warned: “The stuff they say they want to cut is miniscule, vanishingly small.
“We did not have a single member of staff whose sole job is DEI, there will be people covering that as part of their job. And this is a tiny square root of a rounding error of the social care budget.”
Several other councils won by Reform say they do not have staff members whose only role is diversity and inclusion. The level of net zero expenditure may also not quite match the party’s preconceptions.
In Kent some 97 per cent of the county council’s environmental budget is actually spent on waste collection, while much of the remaining 3 per cent goes on other statutory spending such as heritage and ecology officers.
The council has also saved money under the badge of “net zero” by switching street lighting to LED bulbs.
Reform’s threatened efficiency savings are already causing local rows.
In Derbyshire, the county council’s £120,000 a year Community Leadership Scheme, where councillors can choose local projects on which to spend small pots of money on, has reportedly been put on hold following Reform’s victory.
The money used so far has been spent on lunches for elderly people and the cleaning of war memorials – two causes which would normally appeal to Reform’s voter base.
But Reform Derbyshire spokesperson Stephen Reed has told the BBC the party was committed to “reviewing everything” as part of an anti-waste audit. Community leaders are demanding a rethink.
Smithers, the former North Northamptonshire Tory leader, said of the promised war on waste: “Good luck in finding any excess fat.”
And a former Conservative special adviser said: “It is hard to govern, it’s bloody hard. Crafty chief execs in local authorities will put every trap in front of them and they’ll fall in every hole.
“They’re talking about DOGE – if in two years’ time they’ve actually cut spending in the local authorities, I’ll be really impressed.
“Local authorities are even more canny than Whitehall departments when it comes to spending and making sure they get their settlements, they are really canny.”
But, the former adviser added, Reform may not necessarily suffer politically compared to other parties even if they do run into problems.
“If you look at Croydon, you look at Birmingham, you look at a lot of these councils across the country, it’s not as if they’ve been run in a Rolls Royce fashion anyway,” they said. “If you poll most people, they think the councils are run terribly anyway.”
Migration and asylum
Reform’s national leadership has said it will take legal action to close asylum hotels.
But in some councils now run by the party, the local picture is more difficult.
In Kent – which has the small boats issue on its doorstep – a High Court ruling is in place requiring the county council to house unaccompanied asylum seeker children.
Local sources in Kent questioned whether Reform would want to risk being in contempt of court by refusing to abide by the ruling if they were also planning legal challenges on the wider hotels issue.
In a recent interview Reform’s new Kent County Council leader Linden Kemkaran said immigration is “for central government to sort out, but they are not doing a good job”.
“It is clear that there is a great deal of work to be done,” she told ITV. “Hearing how angry people are. How much despair they feel.”
England’s potholes epidemic
Every council across the country has a potholes problem, and Starmer’s government recently announced funding to help local authorities fill them.
As part of a new £1.6bn road maintenance package from central government, £500m is earmarked for pitted roads – which the Department of Transport says will fill seven million potholes every year. But questions have been asked about whether this will be enough.
In Derbyshire, the county council already spends £50m a year on repairing roads but says it needs £75m.
The council is also still paying for the impact of Storm Babet, which hit the UK in October 2023, including the cost of landslips and repairing retaining walls in the rural and hilly county.
But Reform are raising hopes on the issue – in Kent, new council leader Kemkaran told ITV: “People are sick and tired of their road being closed for sometimes weeks at a time for their roads to be fixed.” But making a difference will cost more money when little is available.
The party was contacted for comment
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