‘It is like he’s trying to distance himself from it, calling it an Efficiency Review instead of calling it what it is, ‘Doge’.’
The new Reform leader of North Northamptonshire council, Martin Griffiths, appears to have distanced himself from Reform’s Musk-style ‘Department of Government Efficiency’ (Doge) in presenting a spending review to councillors.
Ben Williams, one of the Green Party councillors for Ise in North Northants, told Left Foot Forward that during the council’s first executive meeting on Tuesday this week, Griffiths had called the probe into council spending “an efficiency review, not Doge”.
The executive meeting agenda states that the review will be carried out internally by council officers, with no mention of ‘Doge’.
But in a BBC Radio Northampton interview on Wednesday, Griffiths said he would accept “free external help” from the ‘Doge’ team, led by Zia Yusuf, to carry out the review.
Doge or not?
“It’s strange,” Williams said, “It is like he’s trying to distance himself from it, calling it an Efficiency Review instead of calling it what it is, ‘Doge’. I am unsure who they are trying to fool.”
He suggested that Griffiths, who was the former Conservative leader of Wellingborough Borough Council before it became obsolete, wants to make Reform in North Northants look “‘independently-minded”. But, he added: “They aren’t, as evidenced by this review being pushed from Reform HQ in London.”
On Tuesday, Nigel Farage made a visit to North Northamptonshire Council’s HQ, posing for photos with Griffiths and meeting with other Reform councillors.
Reform won 39 out of 68 seats on 1 May.
Farage told the Northamptonshire Telegraph that ‘Doge’ is on its way to North Northants, but that “things in this county are a bit different” as the council effectively went bankrupt in 2018, and had almost £600,000 in unpaid debt written off earlier this year.
As a result, he said he thinks his Doge team will find “fewer egregious cases of spending” there.
‘Who are these so-called auditors?’
But Williams said he thinks the Doge team’s involvement is “just for show”. He added: “I am worried that if they don’t find anything interesting, they might try and invent something big so they can score some points out of this.”
He added that “Farage has about as much interest in North Northants as he does in Clacton.”
Williams said he supports a review being carried out and would expect “any new council would hold a review, irrelevant of who the party is”. However, he said: “The main difference is that we don’t know who the auditors are and we didn’t agree to do this formally as a council. Who are these so-called auditors and why are they doing it for free?”.
He also voiced concerns about how the data will be used. Williams said: “Nothing in life is free, I am concerned that this is a data harvesting exercise. We have had no assurance where this data is going, whether it is private or not, and what it will be used for.”
Witch-hunt
The Green Party councillor added that the review must not be “a witch-hunt where council staff have to justify their existence.”
Before the executive meeting, Williams wrote an open letter to the leader of the council and members of the executive committee, stating that he supports the “core aim of the review”, but that “it certainly should not be an exercise to single out, name, or blame Council officers”.
He is concerned the review could also be used to undermine sustainability and diversity policies. He said: “I really worry that the efficiency review, or Doge as it quite obviously is, is an excuse to cut sustainability measures or cut what they perceive to be diversity related staff.”
A spokesperson at North Northamptonshire Council said that they understand the review will be carried out internally, and that “there hasn’t been an indication that the national Reform UK’s DOGE team will visit North Northants as yet.”
Yusuf, who quit Reform earlier this month before rejoining two days later as head of its ‘Doge’ team, has already spoken with the leader of neighbouring Reform-led West Northamptonshire Council about carrying out a review.
Griffiths has been approached for comment.
Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward
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