Reform UK DOGE chief says work at West Northamptonshire Council is ready to begin
19/06/2025
Zia Yusuf met with the council’s leader and chief executive at the end of last week
by Nadia Lincoln, Local Democracy Reporter
Reform UK has said work to identify wasteful spending and savings through its Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is ready to begin at West Northamptonshire Council (WNC).
The new DOGE chief, and former party chairman, Zia Yusuf met with WNC leader Mark Arnull, chief executive Anna Earnshaw and other council officers and the senior leadership team on Friday, June 13. It comes after Reform took 42 of the 76 seats on the council after the local election on May 1.
The team of software engineers, data analysts and forensic auditors, which was inspired by the US body set up under billionaire Elon Musk to look at federal spending, will visit and analyse the balance books of all Reform-UK controlled councils in the country.
Following their initial meeting, the DOGE team will get to work identifying waste and inefficiencies within the WNC budget. They will then issue a report to the council leadership in due course who they say will take action in the best interests of local residents.
Mr Yusuf said the team would use “cutting edge technology” to investigate the spending of taxpayer money and “deliver real value for voters”.
“For too long British taxpayers have watched their money vanish into a black hole,” he said.
“Their taxes keep going up, their bin collections keep getting less frequent, potholes remain unfixed and their local services keep getting cut. Reform won a historic victory in West Northamptonshire and around the country on a mandate to change this.”
The DOGE leader previously resigned from his position as party chairman just days after announcing the local council audits would be coming to West Northants on June 2. He posted on social media that working to get Reform elected to government was no longer a “good use of my time”.
Mr Yusuf later announced that he would be returning to work for Reform UK in a new senior role just 48 hours after quitting, taking up the helm as the DOGE chief.
The party has previously stated that the team will scrutinise local government spending using artificial intelligence, data analysis tools and forensic auditing techniques. Furthermore, it has told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) that the work is being undertaken pro-bono, at no cost to the public purse.
WNC Leader Mark Arnull said: “We fully welcome the assistance Zia and his team have offered to provide to help us uncover waste across council spending.
“Whilst we continue our own work to streamline council finances, the cutting-edge expertise that the DOGE team are providing free of charge will make it that much easier to identify waste and free up funds which we can redirect towards frontline public services like SEND provision, adult social care and filling potholes.”
‘A pantomime dressed up as scrutiny’
New Conservative group leader, Cllr Daniel Lister, said that Reform councillors in West Northamptonshire “have made a lot of noise since the election, but very little sense”, brandishing their DOGE-team as a “dodgy audit”.
He stated that his party, which was formerly in charge of the unitary council, had saved over £115 million since 2021 and delivered balanced budgets each year. The leader of the opposition said that reviewing policies, scrutinising budgets and finding savings is the job of elected councillors, but would instead be outsourced to “unelected outsiders with zero public accountability” under the new programme.
He added that budgets are debated in public with clear records available, robust internal and external audits already exist and that every council spend over £500 is published already.
“This is not transparency, it is theatre,” Cllr Lister said, “A pantomime dressed up as scrutiny, designed to distract from the fact they came into office with no local manifesto, no strategic plan, and now, no idea how to govern.
“Reform councillors say they want to scrutinise the books. They should have done that before accepting the job, not after, and certainly not by pawning it off to political allies with no mandate.
“Democracy is not something you subcontract. West Northamptonshire deserves better than a meme team playing at local government. It deserves serious people doing serious work, not slogans or stunts.”
The Labour group leader Sally Keeble has requested full disclosure of information about the DOGE activities in West Northamptonshire, stating that there should be a “transparent procurement process”.
She previously opposed Reform’s move, saying that it has more to do with “Nigel Farage’s wrecking-ball tendencies” than improving the lives of people in West Northamptonshire.
In her Freedom of Information request to WNC, she has asked for all information, including correspondence on emails, letters, WhatsApp messages and notes of phone calls, that involve executive officers and elected members and representatives of the Reform Party involved in the DOGE activities.
Cllr Keeble said: “Local government is accountable to local people, not to the vagaries of national political figures who have no responsibility for our local services.
“If the Reform administration want to appoint DOGE, they should put the organisation through a transparent procurement process with safeguards in place for people’s personal data.
“Running the Council does not entitle Reform to bulldoze around Angel Square. The Reform administration needs – urgently – to set out its plans for West Northamptonshire. This should include how it intends to improve cost effectiveness of services.”
Published: by the Banbury FM News Team
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