"War on waste" is the drive by the Reform-led county and unitary councils elected in May 2025 to strip out running costs and reduce reliance on outside spending. This page scopes that drive strictly to what the councils have actually *decided* — cabinet and full-council resolutions and adopted budget line items — rather than campaign rhetoric or officer forecasts. It tracks five instruments: external efficiency audits and reviews; controls on consultancy and agency/interim spend; recruitment freezes; senior-management restructures; and the headline savings targets written into adopted budgets and medium-term financial strategies. Every figure and every number below traces back to a cited council decision.
“Work is ongoing to assess the PwC findings against the Council’s Change Portfolio and to identify a plan to implement the recommendations identified by PwC in the form of a Transformation and Efficiency Programme for the Council.” source ↗
“Kent County Council’s Department of Local Government Efficiency (DOLGE) was established by the Leader in May 2025.” source ↗
“The Cabinet considered an exempt report of the Director of Corporate Resources which provided an update on the outcome of the procurement process to commission an external efficiency review and sought approval to award to the most advantageous tender following the completion of the evaluation process.” source ↗
“Councillor Andrew Last proposed the recommendations Councillor John Slope seconded. The Cabinet agreed the recommendations. RESOLVED: a) Noted the information contained at Appendix A that reflects requests from Reform UK but is information that is already in the public domain and accessible to all interested parties. b) Subjected to the satisfactory completion of all due diligence checks considered necessary by the Chief Executive Officer and completion of the relevant legal agreements referred to in recommendation C, approve the sharing of information detailed within Appendix Two” source ↗
“Reduction of Professional Fees Budget Following a review of the budget requirement, opportunities have arisen to make efficiencies and reduce the use of consultants, directly due to the appointment of a full time Project Manager, saving £0.100 million.” source ↗
“we’re on target over the next 12 months to save £1.2 million gross on that, so that’s a good achievement.” source ↗
“Additional financial and workforce efficiencies have been identified, including reductions in temporary worker costs and ending consultancy services.” source ↗
“330. Approval of Agency Spend >£100k Councillor Last proposed and Councillor Slope seconded the report which sought approval for a proposed remuneration package in excess of £100,00 for one interim worker” source ↗
“2. Agree the deletion of the General Counsel and Director of Human Resources and Organisation Development posts.” source ↗
“(c) Deletion of NETPark Project Director role (£0.068 million)” source ↗
“the Chief Executive proposes to partially restructure the Senior Leadership Team to delete the post of Director of Corporate Services and reassign the functions within the current Corporate Services Directorate to create two new posts of Director of Transformation and Director of Finance and Resources within a new revised structure.” source ↗
“approve recommending the savings plans detailed in Appendix 4 (MTFP(15) savings totalling £5.662 million) and Appendix 5 (MTFP(16) savings totalling £9.807 million (was £10.057 million)) and which are profiled in total £12.914 million in 2026/27” source ↗
“Less Budget Reductions -55,331,478” source ↗
“He explained that the draft budget included £179.5m of core funded spending growth and reversals of £28m of previous savings. These spending pressures were offset by £14.7m of net reserve movements, £61.7m of new or full year savings, and £14.6m of income generation, resulting in a net change of £116.5m in revenue spending.” source ↗
“A wider review of savings opportunities across the council which had resulted in a portfolio to the value of £16.599m for 2026/27 with further savings in subsequent years.” source ↗
“Efficiencies identified prior to Newton’s involvement had already been included within the MTFS to the value of £44m. The additional savings of £59m had been developed with Newton’s support.” source ↗
“On the headline £62.7m savings over the Medium Term Financial Plan, the Chief Finance Officer confirmed this was the current identified position, with further efficiencies” source ↗
“Cost pressures and service investment would be, in part, offset by savings, efficiencies and income generation of £20.1m, which included the continuation of savings already included as part of the 2026-27 medium term financial plan and which remained deliverable” source ↗
“The savings plan shows £18.3 million next year, reducing to £15.5 million the year after and £11.1 million in the third year.” source ↗
“Councillor Murray added that the Council was facing £50m in pressures for 2026/27. Of this, £24m would be met through council tax, and £26m through efficiencies and savings to limit the burden on residents.” source ↗
“The Council’s track record of delivering planned savings had enabled a proposed £103m of budget reductions over five years and £27.7m in the next financial year.” source ↗
“Efficiency and income generation totalling more than £8 million have been identified, with many cuts impacting services.” source ↗
The councils split sharply on *who* would do the scrutinising. Two built their own in-house efficiency units under the Reform 'DOGE' banner — Kent stood up a Department of Local Government Efficiency (DOLGE) led by a dedicated cabinet member, and Derbyshire created a Cabinet Member for Council Efficiency (DOGE) portfolio. One, West Northamptonshire, invited Reform's national DOGE team in and formally resolved to share council financial data with it subject to due diligence. Two brought in paid consultants instead: Derbyshire engaged PwC to review its operating model and third-party spend, and Leicestershire ran a competitive procurement and awarded a 'root and branch' efficiency review to Newton Consulting — explicitly declining the DOGE offer, its Leader stating the appointment of an external consultant was the better route to the savings required.
A larger group pointedly preferred an internal, officer-led review over either DOGE or paid consultants — Lancashire, Nottinghamshire, North Northamptonshire and Lincolnshire all commissioned or ran their own finance/procurement efficiency reviews, several stressing there would be 'no cost to the taxpayer'. Others only discussed DOGE without ever deciding: Staffordshire's monitoring officer confirmed no formal DOGE request had been received; Warwickshire said it had 'no firm plans' and set up its own internal Value for Money programme; and County Durham's Leader spoke of 'bringing the Reform Department of Local Government Efficiency into this council to audit the books' but later confirmed the council had 'no engagement with the Reform DOGE initiative so no savings had come from that process'. Conservative-led Newcastle-under-Lyme rejected the DOGE framing outright, pointing to an Efficiency Board it has run since 2018.
Councils: Kent County Council, Derbyshire County Council, West Northamptonshire Council, Leicestershire County Council, Lancashire County Council, Nottinghamshire County Council, North Northamptonshire Council, Lincolnshire County Council, Staffordshire County Council, Warwickshire County Council, Durham County Council, Newcastle-under-Lyme Borough Council
Where councils acted on consultancy and agency spend, the mechanisms varied: a budget line reduction (County Durham cut its professional-fees/consultancy budget by £0.100m after bringing a project manager in-house), a quantified agency-reduction drive (Nottinghamshire targeting agency social-care staff), a spend-approval gate (West Northamptonshire requires member-level sign-off for any agency or interim package over £100,000), and a controls package (Staffordshire set up a panel checking costs and recruitment and began a review of temporary workers, disclosing a baseline of £6.5m on consultants and over £2m on temporary workers). Several apparent 'cuts' did not meet that bar: Derbyshire's planned Consultancy Spend Board was still described as ongoing work with no target, and Essex — though Reform-led — went the other way, its cabinet formally *extending* its agency-payroll contract by a year. Many reported reductions (Lancashire's £3m children's-social-care agency saving, Warwickshire's 22% fall in agency use) were officer-reported outcomes at scrutiny rather than decisions setting a cap.
Recruitment freezes proved rare enough not to warrant a headline figure. Staffordshire was the only council to impose a headcount/recruitment freeze (with a key-worker exception), independently confirmed when a school-programme post was left unfilled because of it. By contrast Derbyshire, Leicestershire and Lincolnshire explicitly did *not* adopt a corporate freeze — Leicestershire's officers stated there was 'no intention to impose a recruitment freeze', preferring organisational redesign and reduced agency use.
Councils: Durham County Council, Nottinghamshire County Council, West Northamptonshire Council, Staffordshire County Council, Derbyshire County Council, Essex County Council, Lancashire County Council, Warwickshire County Council, Leicestershire County Council, Lincolnshire County Council
Across the Reform-led county and unitary budgets adopted in February 2026, the headline single-year (2026/27) efficiency and savings targets range from just over £8m at the low end to £61.7m at the high end, with the largest multi-year programmes — Leicestershire's 'Better Leicestershire' and Warwickshire's five-year plan — reaching around £100m (£102.6m and £103m respectively). The rationale is uniform: closing structural budget gaps driven by social-care demand and inflation (Leicestershire cited a £90m gap, Lincolnshire a £25m gap rising to £55m by 2028/29, Essex a £110m medium-term gap).
Two caveats matter. First, Essex is the Reform-led exception — its adopted 2026/27 budget carries no specific £ efficiency target, committing only to secure 'greater efficiencies… in the medium-term'. Second, delivery lags the ambition: councils reporting against prior-year targets showed slippage — Derbyshire delivered 93.7% of an inherited £37.499m target, and North Northamptonshire delivered £24.6m of a £28.6m target. For comparison, non-Reform councils in the corpus set far smaller or differently-owned targets — Labour-run Doncaster adopted £3.7m of savings for 2026/27 (its budget amended by Reform to cut the council-tax rise), and Conservative Newcastle-under-Lyme closed a £1.599m gap through its long-standing Efficiency Board.
Councils: Kent County Council, West Northamptonshire Council, Leicestershire County Council, Warwickshire County Council, Lincolnshire County Council, Essex County Council, Derbyshire County Council, North Northamptonshire Council, City of Doncaster Council, Newcastle-under-Lyme Borough Council