Reform UK Facebook post claiming it had “saved millions of pounds” at DCC was inaccurate and misleading, authority proves

A Reform UK Facebook post claiming it had “saved millions of pounds” at Derbyshire County Council was inaccurate and misleading, the authority itself has now proven.

In August, the national Reform UK Facebook page lauded praise on its Derbyshire County Council administration for savings in its first 100 days in office.

It claimed: “Today marks 100 days since Reform UK won the local elections. Since then, Derbyshire County Council saved millions of pounds by delaying a pay strategy review for 2 years.”

This post – displayed alongside an image of council leader Cllr Alan Graves and highways cabinet member Cllr Charlotte Hill – attracted 4,500 reactions, including 4,100 likes, 317 love hearts, eight angry faces, two crying faces, one caring reaction and one wow reaction, along with 1,800 comments and 138 shares.

However, a Freedom of Information request filed to the council by the Local Democracy Reporting Service now proves this claim was misleading and inaccurate.

Reform’s Derbyshire administration strenuously denies this, dubbing it a “technicality” and “splitting hairs”.

Opposition leadership has badged the issue as a “desperate” “made-up” claim. 

The council details in its heavily delayed response which took three months to process, breaching the Freedom of Information Act 2000, that no such money has been saved, the potential savings of a delay do not exist and the review remains ongoing indefinitely – not delayed.

It says there is currently “no agreed timeline for delivery” for the pay review, which has been on the books for “the last few years” and confirmed that in the meantime, pay for Derbyshire County Council staff continues to be “generally below that of other councils”.

The council confirms that no such decision to delay the pay strategy review has been made, confirming that this is also why there is no decision notice for that alleged move.

It says: “The council has had an aspiration to address the payline for the last few years, however the financial situation has meant this would be problematic. 

“We still have an aspiration to put forward a report which would be considered in due course by members, but we need to be realistic about the timescale in which this can be achieved.

“The review is looking at opportunities and options to address the pay line challenge.

“During a time of sustained financial pressure, identifying how we would fund a pay line adjustment will be extremely challenging. 

“At this point in time, no firm proposal has been identified, and no formal decision has been taken by members.

“The council has made no decisions on the pay strategy review and therefore there is no decision notice.

“The aims of the pay strategy review are to: 

• analyse the current pay level of council employees which is generally below that of other councils
• consider whether this impacts on recruitment and retention of staff, and whether any staffing recruitment and retention issues in turn impacts on service delivery to residents and communities

“Following the review, the results would be considered by members, with a proposal to be identified which may or may not include a recommendation on a pay line adjustment.”

Reform UK and the Derbyshire Reform group were approached for comment.

Cllr Alex Dale, Conservative opposition leader, said: “This doesn’t surprise me at all. Reform are so desperate to point to anything they can try and claim as an achievement from their dire first six months in office that they’ll even resort to making stuff up.

“Even if it were true, it wouldn’t be an actual saving anyway, just a decision not to spend several million pounds more on something which is totally within their gift anyway.”

In response, Cllr Stephen Reed, cabinet member for business services, said: “The statement by Reform UK is not wrong.

“As soon as we entered Derbyshire County Council, we were clear internally and with officers from the beginning that the pay strategy review will not be going ahead.

“As a result, we were confident in saying that we would save millions of pounds by delaying a decision on the pay strategy review.

“The response you’ve received from your FOI is a technicality. Whilst we have been very open that the review will not be going ahead, therefore saving the council £20 million, that can only be confirmed when we publish our budget.

“The budget will be published in the next few months, and you will see for yourself that the pay review will not form part of that, due to the early decision we made to not go ahead with it.

“The budget makes clear that we cannot do this, the money is not there for the review, and it makes more sense to delay it to form part of local government reorganisation.”

Through local government reorganisation, currently scheduled for April 2028, current council employees at various authorities across Derbyshire would be merged into either one or two councils – replacing the current 10 – meaning policies and pay would need to be standardised.

In June, Reform made another false claim about its financial savings, which it later admitted were an incorrect mix-up, claiming it had been saving £6,000 a day in its first two weeks in charge, most of which were “planned savings”.

The real figure was £3,739 per day (0.007 per cent of the council budget), but this has reduced further following one saving – merging the council chair and civic chair roles – saving less than half the intended amount (£3,778 per year instead of £7,536 per year).