Polly has written to the Chief Executive of Kent County Council (KCC), demanding that KCC stops using false and misleading savings figures in official council documents and press releases.
Polly Billington MP’s call follows Freedom of Information (FOI) disclosures showing that Council Leader Linden Kemkaran’s claim she had saved Kent taxpayers £39.5 million by cancelling net zero projects was not supported by council documentation.
In fact, the Council admitted that the two supposedly cancelled projects were “high‑level, unfunded and unapproved possibilities” which had never meaningfully existed and for which no business cases or other documents had been developed. The Council also conceded in response to the FOI request that Cllr Kemkaran’s claims were made as “part of a political speech”.
Despite this, KCC continues to use the figures in official press materials, bolstering Reform UK’s false claim that their much-touted Department of Government Local Efficiency (Dolge) initiative had made considerable savings in Kent.
Today, Polly Billington wrote to KCC Chief Executive Amanda Beer calling on the council to stop using the figures. She said in her letter: “there is no evidential basis to back up the claims made by Cllr Kemkaran, no basis on which to claim these programmes ever meaningfully existed, and therefore nothing to support the assertion that Reform UK has saved KCC £39.5 million.”
She went on to say: “Given the projects were unfunded and unapproved, it is clearly misleading to the general public to claim that not going ahead with them was a ‘cost-avoidance measure’, as no costs ever existed in the first place.”
Speaking after the publication of the letter, Polly Billington MP said:
“If Reform UK announced a Kent space programme yesterday but then said today that they’d decided against it, you would laugh them out of county hall for calling that a saving, not applaud them for their thriftiness. But that is exactly what Linden Kemkaran is doing with these bogus savings claims, with Kent County Council a willing accessory to that lie.
“Our councils have a legal duty to honesty and political impartiality, and the continued use of these fantasy figures is a clear breach of that duty.
“These supposedly cancelled projects never existed, and the fantastical £39.5 million saving Linden Kemkaran is spinning is something Reform UK completely made up. Kent County Council needs to reflect on their public sector duty and stop peddling these false figures to the people of Kent.”