Reform UK-run Kent council plans to raid £2 million from schools’ already-squeezed budgets to pay for vital services it can no longer afford, sparking fears of more classroom cuts.
Leaders say the proposals fly in the face of Reform’s pre-election pledges to identify efficiencies and savings through a pilot of its own Elon Musk-style DOGE unit.
The party also admitted this week it’s likely to hike council tax charges for its residents.
National Education Union general secretary Daniel Kebede said: “They promised that they would reduce waste to make the council more efficient.
“Having failed to identify actual waste, they have resorted to charging schools for council services. This result will be more cuts to Kent’s schools. The NEU doubts this is what voters expected of them”.
Council reviews services for maintained schools
Kent, England’s biggest council, has long used council tax cash to cover several services available to its authority-maintained schools.
But documents published by the authority show it decided to launch a review of funding to ensure it “was not now inadvertently advantaging maintained schools over academies”.
County hall officials noted it was “not providing this subsidy” to trust-run primaries and secondaries, which account for around half of its schools and teach two-thirds of its pupils.
The council is now proposing to increase the top slice it takes from its maintained schools by just over £2.2 million to pay for services which are currently subsidised.
These include statutory compliance testing, which includes asbestos management and fire and electrical safety, and health and safety advice.
Kent also wants to scrap in-house occupational health services, saving almost £345,000, with schools expected to buy in the support themselves.
But Kebede said Kent schools “have been hard hit by the last 15 years of austerity” and added NEU analysis shows four-fifths of its schools have the equivalent of £126 million less spending power now than in 2010.
Schools oppose plans
Council papers show almost 60 per cent of schools opposed the proposals to top slice budgets for statutory compliance testing and surveys.
Budgetary concerns and the view that “schools should commission” the services themselves were among the reasons critics gave.
Forty-eight per cent of schools supported the plan to buy in occupational health advice and support when they needed it, while 41 per cent opposed it. There was a higher proportion of schools that “disagreed or strongly disagreed” with the rest of the proposals.
Kent said opponents tended to fall into one of two camps.
Some argued leaders should be allowed to “buy what they need, rather than have a service imposed upon them”, while others thought the authority must pay for the support itself as schools “cannot afford this top-slicing”.
The council said many “do not have the budget, skills, or staff to self-manage these critical areas of service, particularly in the primary sector”. An opt-in system, meanwhile, also “increases, rather than decreases, costs” for schools.
Maintained schools can’t shop around
Academy consultant Lucia Glynn noted Kent’s “difficulties are mirrored right across the country, [with] almost every local authority having to reduce services to schools”.
But “while academies have freedom to go and choose from the marketplace, maintained schools don’t have that. Some services provided by local authorities aren’t of a good quality”.
The proposals will have to be signed off by the county’s schools forum next month, before its planned implementation in April. If members snub the plans the authority could refer the matter to the education secretary.
Kent admitted last year that it could not afford to provide school improvement support. Instead, schools in the county must now pay for help – with specific support for struggling schools pulled altogether.
A Local Government Association spokesperson said the “financial challenges” faced by councils have forced some to cut services, while “understanding that schools also have significant budgetary pressures”.
“This highlights why it is vital councils are adequately funded in the autumn budget so they can adequately meet their statutory duties for education.”
Reform declined to comment.
Council says changes ‘aren’t new’
The party previously claimed its DOGE team, led by the party’s policy chief Zia Yusuf, had identified over £24,000 had been spent on trampolining, bowling and cinema trips for asylum seekers.
Yusuf said at the time: “Reform will fight for taxpayers.”
A Kent spokesperson said the changes “are not new” and reflect national policy changes that have “seen a progressive reduction in [council] budgets to provide services for schools … mirroring academy sector practice”.
The authority is “under significant financial pressure due to rising costs, increasing demand for services like adult and children’s social care, and limited funding from government and local taxes”.
They added: “To set a balanced budget, the council must make savings and focus spending on its top priorities.”
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