Inferior pension schemes won’t create savings nor recruit vital staff

Commenting on remarks made by Richard Tice about preventing new recruits to Reform-controlled councils from joining the local government pension scheme alongside threats to cut the pay of existing employees, UNISON assistant general secretary Jon Richards said today (Thursday):

“This looks like another Reform UK policy scribbled on the back of a beer mat.

“Local authorities are obliged to offer access to the local government pension scheme to all new starters.

“The scheme is well-funded and affordable. Many council employees aren’t on final salary schemes anyway.

“Forcing council staff on to inferior pensions would leave retired workers much poorer and add to the already severe recruitment crisis in local government.

“Employees’ pensions aren’t the reason why many councils are on a financial precipice. It’s the decade and more of draconian budget cuts under Conservative governments.

“Reform claims to be on the side of workers. But declaring ‘war’ on low-paid staff won’t serve communities or cut budgets.”

Reform UK’s pension plan deserves early retirement, www.unison.org.uk

#failedToDoHomework #fantasyEconomics #JonRichards #RichardTice #UNISON #InTheNews

Does reform not know how councils work that it threatens our privacy?

Kent County Councillor, Tim Prater of the Liberal Democrats, has roundly condemned Reform’s latest attempt to emulate Donald Trump.

In a letter to Kent County Council (KCC) signed by Linden Kemkaran (KCC leader for Reform), Nigel Farage, and Zia Yusuf, Reform have demanded access to all KCC data (even sensitive information about residents) for a group of unelected persons that Reform has chosen not to let the public know about.

Cllr Prater called it an “attack on Kent by Reform UK national leadership”.

This embarrassing, threatening and totally misjudged letter to Kent County Council tonight is an attack on Kent by Reform UK national leadership, countersigned by their new Kent leader who clearly doesn’t have a clue.

Anyone with the first understanding of how local Government has worked for the last 30 years knows the information they request is almost all public anyway. I suggest their highly expert DOGE team try “googling a bit”.

The rest is either subject to the same FOI constraints as apply to the public or other Councillors. To suggest there is top secret information here is nonsense on shifts, brought to you by people who have no understanding of how any public organisation in this country works. Mainly because they have never worked within local government in this country.

The irony that they have not released the “appended” list of “DOGE” representatives who should be given access to any data they imagine is interesting is not lost on us. They can ask for information on millions of Kent residents, thousands of Kent employees, but you won’t even tell us who they are?

The Lib Dems stand with Kent residents, and Kent County Council staff.

There is a process. That process includes the Council meetings your administration have cancelled at KCC over the next 3 weeks. They can ask for information in a public and democratically accountable way. You might not understand the process, but that’s your fault, not theirs.

DOGE in the USA just fell apart, having failed to find much of interest or actual saving, making a highly embarrassing series of blunders, some life threatening, and its leader Musk slamming the most recent Government bill and then quitting to spend more time with his failing business. To visit that pain on Kent is to hold us in contempt. We say no.

Liberal Democrat Cllr Tim Prater, via Facebook

#DOGE #DOLGE #failedToDoHomework #LiberalDemocrats #LindenKemkaran #NigelFarage #TimPrater #ZiaYusuf #TheySaidThat_

The cost of Reform UK’s anti-environmental policies

Reform UK has said it will scrap net zero and cut all renewable subsidies – the impact would be hugely damaging

[…]

Reform UK has said it will scrap net zero with various figures banded around by the party’s representatives for how much this will raise – anywhere from £225bn to £45bn. The Institute for Government, who’s analysis is used to calculate the larger of these two figures, has already said the Party has misrepresented its analysis and failed to acknowledge that most of this investment will come from the private sector – in other words, Reform UK’s policies would likely destroy much needed investment into the UK economy.

But what is the real cost of their anti-renewable and anti-net zero policies? It is important to ensure all political parties are accountable to the public and the impacts of their policies are estimated in a transparent and consistent manner.

The cost of Reform UK’s anti-environmental policies, New Economics Foundation

#environment #failedToDoHomework #fantasyEconomics #ReformInefficiencyDepartment #scrapping #InTheNews

Farage’s numbers don’t add up

Stuart Adam, a senior economist at Institute for Fiscal Studies think tank, said increasing the annual income tax allowance to £20,000 could cost between £50bn and £80bn a year, depending on the details.

“As it stands, I don’t think they’ve really set out how they would pay for such big giveaways,” he said.

“Of course they don’t have to do that yet – we’re not at a general election. But at some point, if they’re going to be a party of government, they would have to make those numbers add up.”

Stuart Adam (on Reform’s fantasy tax cuts) via BBC

#failedToDoHomework #fantasyEconomics #InstituteForFiscalStudies #NigelFarage #StuartAdam #TheySaidThat_

The economic fantasies of Reform UK

Nigel Farage’s fiscal arithmetic is as eye-catching as it is unserious.

[…]

That reality is the sticking point. Raising the tax threshold to £20,000 is estimated to cost between £50bn and £80bn all on its own. Reform claims to have found a cool £225bn down the back of the Treasury sofa by scrapping net zero and insists it could save more still by cutting funding to quangos. Good luck, as they say, with that.

But how successful will Reform’s opponents be at pointing this out? Shadow chancellor Mel Stride has been out and about, calling Farage’s plans “fantasy economics”, while Labour has gone for “fantasy promises”. Farage’s answer to this charge was that all parties fudge the figures in their manifestos, suggesting Reform’s creative accounting was par for the course. Against the general backdrop of disillusionment with the political establishment, the narrative will be that Reform are no worse than the other parties – and that official estimates should be viewed sceptically anyway.

One attack line might get through. “Trussonomics on steroids” was how the Liberal Democrats responded to Tuesday’s proposals.

The economic fantasies of Reform UK, New Statesman

#failedToDoHomework #fantasyEconomics #netZero #ReformInefficiencyDepartment #Trussonomics #InTheNews

Reform’s phony war on ‘woke’

Three times Reform UK pledged to scrap schemes that don’t exist

Reform UK wants to scrap anything with even a hint of ‘woke’ about it. Now that they run 10 councils, they have their opportunity.

There’s just one problem: they keep targeting schemes that just don’t exist – at least not outside the imagination of the right wing press.

Reform’s phony war on ‘woke’, informuk.org

#failedToDoHomework #imaginaryProblems #warOnWoke #InTheNews

Reform councillor, Barry Martin, considers quitting because being a councillor is “dull and boring”

Via X/Twitter

#BarryMartin #dullAndBoring #failedToDoHomework #Quiting #vettingFail #TheySaidThat_

New Warwickshire councillor sorry after discovering he can’t represent Reform UK

A new Warwickshire county councillor has apologised for a “mistake” that means he will be unable to serve under the Reform UK banner for now.

Councillor Luke Shingler swept to a comfortable victory in Nuneaton’s Galley Common ward having been promoted as the Reform candidate until five days before the ballot.

He took to social media on the Saturday before the polls to tell residents he was not allowed to “run under a political organisation, party or movement due to my employment” but that it was too late to change ballot papers that linked him to Reform.

New Warwickshire councillor sorry after discovering he can’t represent Reform UK, warwickshireworld.com

#failedToDoHomework #LukeShingler #Quiting #ReformInefficiencyDepartment #vettingFail #Warwickshire #InTheNews

Reform councils pledge to scrap LTNs that don’t exist

All 10 council areas controlled by rightwing party tell the Guardian they have no low-traffic neighbourhoods

Reform UK’s pledge to remove all low-traffic neighbourhoods from the council areas it controls looks to be achieved in record time after the 10 local authorities said they do not actually have any in place.

Zia Yusuf, Reform UK’s chair, said last week there would be a “large-scale reversal” of existing LTNs in the 10 areas across England where the party won control of the councils in local elections on 1 May.

“We view these schemes with the same suspicion as mass immigration and net zero,” Yusuf told the Telegraph, adding: “You can expect, if you live in a Reform council, for there to be a much higher bar for any proposals for LTNs and for the large-scale reversal of these existing LTNs.”

The Guardian contacted the councils now run by Reform – Derbyshire, Doncaster, Durham, Kent, Lancashire, Lincolnshire, North Northamptonshire, Nottinghamshire, Staffordshire and West Northamptonshire – and they all said they had no such schemes.

Reform councils pledge to scrap LTNs – despite there being none in their areas, Tthe Guardian

#failedToDoHomework #imaginaryProblems #notInTheRealWorld #ReformInefficiencyDepartment #ZiaYusuf #InTheNews

New Reform mayor Andrea Jenkyns vows to sack county council’s diversity officers – except there aren’t any

Dame Andrea Jenkyns has doubled down on Farage’s pledge to sack diversity officers in Lincolnshire but the county council has revealed it does not employ any

Andrea Jenkyns’ vow to get rid of council diversity officers as one of her first acts as the new Reform mayor for Lincolnshire has fallen flat after it emerged that the county council doesn’t employ any.

New Reform mayor Andrea Jenkyns vows to sack county council’s diversity officers – except there aren’t any, Independent

#AndreaJenkyns #failedToDoHomework #imaginaryProblems #Lincolnshire #notInTheRealWorld #ReformInefficiencyDepartment #InTheNews