Reform’s councils are encountering the same problems as their predecessors: rising costs, constrained budgets and difficult political trade-offs. Most council budgets are effectively immovable: 70–80% is legally committed to adult social care and children’s services. With rising demand, mandatory responsibilities, and reduced central funding, councils typically need to increase council tax by about 5% each year simply to avoid bankruptcy. This makes Reform’s core pledges: freezing taxes, finding huge efficiencies, and eliminating “waste”, completely unworkable in practice.
Reform councillors, only now grasping the constraints they face, are scrambling. Kent has conceded that there just aren’t any savings left to find. Elsewhere, Reform-run authorities have turned to highly contentious actions such as shutting care homes or limiting transport for children with special needs. These decisions have sparked public backlash and charges of hypocrisy.
Reform UK promotes an image of rising professionalism and deep talent, but accounts from the ten councils it now controls tell a different story. Sources in places like Kent, Lincolnshire and Durham describe Reform councillors as unprepared and overwhelmed by the complexity of local government. Many assumed council work was easy and are now “rabbits in the headlights.” The clearest example is Nottinghamshire councillor James Walker-Gurley, who admitted he had “no idea” how his council relates to the regional authority and struggled to articulate his own priorities. The issue isn’t inexperience alone, but the gap between Reform’s claims of expertise and the reality.
This article outlines the reality of councils budgets with care being the main cost:
- Adult social care: 39% of spending (public guess: 13%)
- Children’s social care: 22% (public guess: 11%)
- Combined: 61% of all council spending.
- Care costs are rising while funding falls, forcing councils to cut non-statutory services (e.g., reducing bin collections), creating visible decline like dirtier streets and potholes.
- These unseen care costs—used by relatively few residents—fuel public misconceptions that “wasteful admin” is to blame.
STOP REFORM UK 