The Reform councillor claims his words were ‘twisted’ to ‘fit into an anti-KCC narrative’
The Head of Reform’s cost-cutting department at Kent County Council has resigned after saying the council hasn’t made any cuts in a media interview.
According to the BBC, Matthew Fraser Moat stepped down from his role leading the council’s Doge team, after telling the Financial Times that Reform’s Doge unit, modelled on Elon Musk’s equivalent in the U.S., had not saved any money.
In an FT article published earlier this week, Moat said he was really proud that the Reform council had “not actually made any cuts”, adding “we haven’t cut frontline services other than what the Conservatives had already planned to do”.
His Reform colleague Paul Chamberlain said that the team had expected to find vast amounts of waste, but that the savings had “not materialised”.
He added: “We made some assumptions that we would come in here and find some of the craziness that [Elon Musk’s cost-cutting vehicle] Doge found in America . . . and that was wrong, we didn’t find any of that.”
He also said: “I wish we could have found those big savings for Zia, it would have been a better story, but we didn’t”.
But now Moat has resigned, saying that the pressures of his role at the council and running a family business had led to “a lapse of judgement”.
Moat said: “I was very disappointed to see my words twisted to fit what I believe to be an anti-KCC narrative by the newspaper in question.”
The Reform councillor said: “It has become clear to me that continuing as Head of Dolge is not sustainable, and now that KCC has delivered a balanced budget and stabilised the council’s finances, I have decided to step down from my role as a cabinet member.”
Kent County Council said the article “does not accurately reflect the position” at the authority and that it “presents a selective account of the council’s work on efficiency and value for money”.
A Reform UK spokesperson said the “unfair and selective reporting from the Financial Times does not accurately represent the position at Kent County Council”.
Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward
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