‘This is just ridiculous nonsense designed to wind people up.’
Zia Yusuf, head of Reform’s Musk-style ‘Doge’ team, has made another claim about council spending without providing proof.
This time, he claimed Kent County Council (KCC) spends £100 million a year on staff who work from home. Recently, he said the council was spending taxpayer money on trips to the cinema, bowling and crazy golf.
Yusuf provided no proof for these claims. However, it is understood that he was referring to unaccompanied minors in the care system, who sometimes go on trips which are funded by the Home Office.
Yusuf claimed: “Reform’s Doge team spent several days there and the office was a wasteland. Nobody working.”
He also alleged KCC’s CEO, Amanda Beer, said staff have monitoring software on their laptops, but she doesn’t “actively check” if they’re online.
“Kent Council is refusing point blank any analysis of the (anonymised) data. I wonder why?” Yusuf said, adding: “There is much, much more to reveal about just how much Kent Council is taking advantage of taxpayers.”
Councillor Antony Hook, Lib Dem Opposition leader at KCC, said: “Once again, we see unelected Zia Yusuf commenting on KCC instead of any of the 57 people elected as county councillors for Reform.”
He added: “We also see, again, Mr Yusuf make claims without producing any documents or other claims to back up his evidence.”
The Lib Dem stressed that working from home is “part of modern work” and that “it’s about how many tasks a person is completing and the quality of what they’re producing”.
Reform has cancelled six meetings this month, and postponed a further four.
Hook told Kent Online: “If Reform stopped cancelling meetings at KCC then these issues could get a proper airing in public. Every relevant question could be asked and we could receive answers from the elected Reform leadership and senior staff.
“It is Reform who are running away from scrutiny and public accountability, while Mr Yusuf makes claims for which he offers no evidence.”
Conservative councillor Sarah Hudson said: “People have always worked from home – it’s not just a Covid thing.”
She added: “Why would Amanda Beer check every laptop of council employees – she hasn’t got enough hours in the day as it is.”
“Line managers can dial into the laptops of their teams and see if they are logged in and see what they are doing. Besides which, because the council has had to dispose of a lot of its property, there probably isn’t the office space for everyone to move back into, anyway.
“This is just ridiculous nonsense designed to wind people up.”
Chief executive of the Local Government Information Unit (LGiU) Jonathan Carr-West said that £100m would be a “big chunk” of KCC’s annual £1.5bn budget. He added that greater clarity and detail about Yusuf’s claims is needed.
Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward
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