What can Northamptonshire expect from Reform UK's Doge teams?
They have caused a stir in Donald Trump's US and now Elon Musk-style Doge teams are descending on Northamptonshire's two unitary councils, which are run by Reform UK. What can people in the county expect from them and what have they achieved elsewhere?
What is Doge all about?
Hardly anyone had heard the acronym Doge before Donald Trump returned to the White House in 2025.The idea is reported to have surfaced first at a dinner party where Donald Trump's billionaire advisor, Elon Musk, was speaking in 2023.The Tesla, Space X and X businessman told fellow diners that, if given the passwords to government computers, he could streamline its operations.When Trump became President again this year, he set up the Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) and put Musk in charge of it.Its aim was to end the "tyranny of bureaucracy", save taxpayers' money and cut the US national debt, said Musk.What has actually happened so far is two million federal workers being offered a deal to leave.
What are Reform UK's Doge team doing in Northamptonshire?
A preliminary meeting with the Doge team happened this week at West Northamptonshire Council, and it will be descending on North Northamptonshire in the near future following the huge swing from the Conservatives to Reform UK in the May local elections.The Reform UK leader, Nigel Farage, who received a hero's welcome when he met his councillors in Corby on Tuesday, explained how it would work."The Doge team comes in and it talks to the officers and says 'we want to look at the books, we want to see what money's been spent on this, what money's been spent on that, we want to see the credit card statements, we want to see the contracts'," he said.He took repairing potholes as an example and said Doge would ask "Who've you assigned to do this job? How long is the contract for? What's the cost? Is it based on results?"He insisted that "not everything about Doge is critical, not everything about Doge is slagging off what's gone before. I'm really hoping that Doge can help everybody".Reform UK said its team in West Northamptonshire would consist of "software engineers, data analysts and forensic auditors".
How much is Doge costing taxpayers?
The short answer, according to Reform UK, is nothing.Mark Arnull, leader at West Northamptonshire, said: "The cutting-edge expertise the Doge team are providing free of charge will make it that much easier to identify waste and free up funds."Martin Griffiths, who leads West Northamptonshire, said: "We're not going to pay a penny [for the Doge review] so that's why our officers are fully in support of this."Some politicians have questioned whether experts would really work for free, and have suggested the pro bono element might not be good for local people.Rich Lehmann, Green party leader in Kent, the first council to undergo the process, said: "The fact that they have software engineers offering to work 'for free' is of particular concern, given that the data they are forcefully requesting access to would include significant volumes of commercially sensitive information and the personal data of many of Kent's most vulnerable residents."
How have opposition parties reacted to Doge in Northamptonshire?
The leader of the Labour group on West Northamptonshire Council, Sally Keeble is concerned about the team's accountability and use of data.She has submitted a Freedom of Information request for all communication between the council and the team to be disclosed.She said: "If the Reform administration wants to appoint Doge, they should put the organisation through a transparent procurement process with safeguards in place for people's personal data."
Helen Harrison, who leads the Conservative opposition in North Northamptonshire, has said she would welcome any efficiencies but believed the review should be carried out by council officers rather than an external team.Jonathan Harris, who leads the Liberal Democrat group in the North, said: "We understand that during the visit on Friday, 13 June the Doge team asked for no information, were provided with no information, didn't share a plan, and yet proclaimed that they were already 'starting to save taxpayers money'."
Harris added: "It begs the question why taxpayers are paying cabinet member allowances, including basic councillor allowances of around £424,000 to the [Reform UK] administration."It's their job to lead, set strategy and establish savings, not the responsibility of an unelected group of individuals."West Northamptonshire's Independent councillor Ian McCord said he had written to the council leader to ask whether advice had been sought about the legal standing of the Doge unit, and whether data held by the council would be safe.
What effect has Doge had elsewhere?
NIgel Farage is adamant that the Doge approach is working.He said: "Already, in other counties, we have found examples of pretty egregious expenditure."In Derby, where there is a cabinet member for council efficiency (Doge), the party claimed to have made efficiency savings equating to £6,000 per day.It later admitted that figure was a mistake and was more like £4,000 per day.
An unlikely winner so far from the Doge initiative has been the public sector workers' union Unison.According to data released to Sky News, weekly new memberships increased by an average of 272% in the week after the May election results were announced.From a weekly average of 12 new members at North Northamptonshire the union saw the figure shoot up to 27 in the week following the election.Farage has admitted that efficiencies may be more difficult to find in Northamptonshire's two unitary councils, which came into being in 2021, than in some older authorities.Other politicians have pointed out that councils already face regular audits so Doge teams would simply duplicate that process.On the available evidence, though, two things look certain: Northamptonshire will go through the Doge process, and it will still be controversial.
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