Kent County Council’s Lobbyist: Policy Connect, Missing Spend Trail, and the Questions Over Who Pays for Influence

Kent County Council, like many other organisations and companies, uses a lobbyist to get its voice heard at government level. The lobbyist it has used most frequently is Policy Connect Ltd. Quarterly disclosures show Policy Connect listed as KCC’s consultant lobbyist from April–June 2024, through July–September 2024, October–December 2024, January–March 2025 and April–June 2025.

That matters, because lobbying is—at its best—a way of injecting real-world expertise into national decision-making. At its worst, it is how those with the sharpest elbows buy better access than those without.

What lobbyists actually do (good, bad, ugly)

A lobbyist’s job is to influence policy. In plain terms: they arrange meetings, write briefings, shape narratives, build coalitions, and help organisations understand and respond to what government is doing. “Consultant lobbying” (the category in KCC’s quarterly disclosures) is when a firm does that work on behalf of a paying client.

The good is obvious. Councils are on the front line of adult social care, highways, SEND and housing pressures. If central government is designing rules, funding formulas or tech programmes that land in county hall, it can be sensible for councils to make their case directly.

The bad is equally obvious: access is not evenly distributed. Those who can afford professional “government relations” can end up getting earlier, more frequent, and more polished contact—while residents and smaller voluntary groups fight for a reply.

And the ugly is where lobbying blurs into an accountability problem: policy “evidence” can be curated, inconvenient voices filtered out, and the public left with a simple question they cannot answer—who asked for this, who paid for it, and who benefits? That concern is especially sharp around the Westminster ecosystem of informal parliamentary groups and external secretariats—an area repeatedly criticised for being opaque to the public.

What Policy Connect is — and why KCC fits naturally into its world

Policy Connect describes itself as a cross-party think tank that supports parliamentary groups, forums and commissions, and runs policy research and events to help shape public policy in Westminster and Whitehall.

KCC’s appearances across Policy Connect’s own programme pages are not subtle. On Policy Connect’s site, KCC is presented as a sponsor of the “Kent and Medway ATech Skills for Social Care Commission”, a project intended to produce recommendations “to policymakers at all levels of government”. The commission is described as co-chaired by a Medway councillor and Cllr Dan Watkins (Kent County Council), and it explicitly positions itself as shaping both local and national policy on assistive technology (“ATech”) delivery.

Policy Connect’s public “funders & supporters” list goes further: it places Kent County Council in a contribution band of £10,001–£20,000.

So the relationship is not merely “KCC once attended a seminar”. It looks, in Policy Connect’s own presentation, like KCC is helping underwrite a policy programme intended to reach central government.

Then, what KCC’s spend page says (and doesn’t say)

KCC publishes an “Invoices over £250” transparency page—monthly files intended to show who is paid and how much.

We’ve checked the KCC spend data over £250 and found no payments to Policy Connect, nor have we found it in any other publicly facing spend data KCC produces. The effect is not just an inconvenience for the curious: it means the public cannot easily reconcile (a) repeated quarterly lobbying disclosures and (b) Policy Connect’s own description of KCC as a £10k–£20k supporter, with (c) a straightforward “here’s the payment” audit trail.

There are mundane explanations. Payments might be:

• recorded under a different supplier name,

• bundled into a wider contract with a prime provider,

• processed via a partnership vehicle (Kent & Medway work often is),

• or classed in a way that doesn’t neatly appear under the label a resident would search.

But “mundane explanation” is not the same thing as “problem solved”. On its face, the transparency picture is fragmented: the relationship is publicly visible, but the money trail is not.

Open Access ministerial meetings: the link that snaps into focus

The ministerial-meetings transparency system is meant to show who meets ministers and why. The Open Access Transparency portal link you highlighted points to one such entry. Even without relying on that portal, the underlying government disclosure for the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) records a meeting on 4 September 2024 between Stephen Timms and Policy Connect, “to be introduced to Policy Connect and discuss Assistive Technology in the disability space”. 

This is where the story stops being abstract. Policy Connect is not simply “some think tank in London”. It is meeting a minister about assistive technology—precisely the territory where Policy Connect is simultaneously running a Kent-and-Medway commission, sponsored by KCC, explicitly designed to feed “recommendations to policymakers”. 

Can we prove that KCC was “represented” in that DWP meeting in the sense of being named in the room? Not from the ministerial-meetings line itself—it does not list every stakeholder interest being advanced, or whose case studies are being carried into the meeting. That is exactly the transparency weakness. But given that KCC is publicly described as a sponsor of Policy Connect’s ATech work and as a £10k–£20k supporter, it is entirely reasonable to suspect that Kent-and-Medway experiences formed part of the package Policy Connect was discussing with ministers.

Who controls Policy Connect Ltd (and what its accounts say)

On Companies House, Policy Connect Limited (company number 03117836) is a company limited by guarantee—a structure commonly used for membership bodies and not-for-profit-style organisations (there are no shares; members guarantee a small amount if it winds up).  The listed person with significant control (PSC)—meaning someone with significant influence or control—is Mrs Claudia Michaela Jaksch (pictured). 

Now to the accounts: this is where the “good, bad and ugly” becomes very concrete.

The good: Policy Connect has historically shown a solid cash position and has consistently filed accounts with auditor information recorded. In 2019–20 it reported cash at bank of £488,364 and reserves of £162,237.  And its later filed accounts continue to state that the auditors’ reports were unqualified.

The bad: the balance sheet trend is uncomfortable. By 30 June 2022 the company had swung into a deficit, with total assets less current liabilities shown at (£10,678) and cash down to £187,344. By 30 June 2023 the deficit still had not been eliminated ((£3,968)) and cash had fallen again to £85,838. Then by 30 June 2024, the position worsened sharply: net liabilities of (£39,187), and net current liabilities of (£52,234). Operationally, the headcount tells its own story of strain and restructuring: the average number of employees is shown as 22 in 2021–22, collapsing to 12 in 2022–23, then edging back to 14 in 2023–24.

The ugly: the accounts explicitly acknowledge the risk. The 2023–24 statements say the “Statement of Financial Position is in deficit” and that there are “net current liabilities”—a classic combination that forces directors to consider whether “going concern” (the assumption the organisation can keep operating) is appropriate. Directors say they took steps to bring expenditure back in line with income and produced forecasts showing surplus and no cashflow issues. 

But here is the public-interest rub: the filed 2023–24 accounts also state the company opted not to file the statement of comprehensive income (effectively the profit-and-loss detail) under the small companies regime. In other words, at the very moment the balance sheet turns materially negative, the public gets less visibility into income sources and spending pressures. For an organisation that exists to connect funding, policy and political access, that is not a great look.

The bottom line: there’s a credibility gap KCC should close—fast

None of this proves wrongdoing. It doesn’t need to. The problem is simpler and, in democratic terms, more corrosive: KCC residents cannot easily see what they are paying for, what they are getting, and how that work is being used to influence national policy.

Right now, the public record tells four things at once:

1. KCC repeatedly engaged Policy Connect as its consultant lobbyist across multiple quarters.

2. Policy Connect publicly presents KCC as a sponsor of ATech policy work designed to reach national policymakers. 

3. Policy Connect lists KCC among supporters at £10k–£20k.

4. Ministerial transparency data shows Policy Connect meeting a DWP minister to discuss assistive technology—exactly the policy lane where KCC’s sponsored commission sits. 

Yet KCC’s own public spend disclosures do not provide a clean, resident-friendly line of sight from “we used this lobbyist” to “here is the payment, here is the contract, here are the deliverables, and here is the public interest case.”

If KCC is confident this work is justified—and it may well be—it should publish, in one place, a plain-English note setting out: the total value paid (or committed) to Policy Connect (including sponsorships and subscriptions), the procurement route used, the outputs delivered (briefings, reports, events, meeting support), and what safeguards exist to ensure residents’ interests—not just institutional preferences—are what gets amplified in Westminster. Because until it does, the story writes itself: a council that talks transparency, but can’t join up its own dots when the national influence industry comes to town.

The Shepway Vox Team

Dissent is NOT a Crime