Reform UK at KCC Says Councillors’ 3.8% Pay Rise Is “Reasonable” — As Council Tax Rises 3.99%

At Kent County Council, a 3.99% rise in council tax is apparently the stern medicine residents must swallow. A 3.8% rise in councillors’ allowances, however, is “entirely reasonable”. Same county. Same cost-of-living backdrop. Same calculator. Just pointed in a different direction.

County Hall has many talents, but one of its finest is the ability to make the same number look either grimly unavoidable or perfectly sensible depending on who is paying it. Residents got the 3.99% council tax increase. Councillors got the 3.8% allowance increase. Reform UK runs the council, and Reform UK’s leader, Linden Kemkaran, told the chamber that the 3.8% uplift for members was “entirely reasonable”. She was not, you may be astonished to learn, talking about your bill.

The formal story is simple enough. Kent’s independent Member Remuneration Panel reviewed the scheme for 2026/27 to 2029/30. It said the current basic allowance remained a fair reflection of the role, even though Kent’s basic allowance was already the highest among the peer county councils it benchmarked against. The panel recommended a 3.6% uplift, based on CPIH for the 12 months to December 2025. Then the administration came along, thanked the panel for its work, and nudged the number up to 3.8% by choosing the October 2025 CPIH figure instead, saying this was for “consistency with the remainder of the budget”. In local government terms, that is what passes for splashing out.

That matters because the inflation story was already moving the other way. The latest published ONS figure is for January 2026, and it shows CPIH annual inflation at 3.2%, down from 3.6% in December 2025 and down from 4.1% in April 2025. The CPIH index itself rose from 137.7 in April 2025 to 139.4 in January 2026. That is a cumulative increase of about 1.23%. So yes, prices did keep rising. But the inflation rate was falling. In plain English: the beast was still alive, but it was no longer charging through the village with flaming nostrils. It was more of a weary trudge towards the biscuit aisle. Kent nevertheless managed to anchor its allowances rise to the sturdier 3.8% October figure rather than the softer 3.2% latest published one. Nicely done, if you are the one receiving it.

The numbers themselves are not exactly pocket fluff. The basic allowance rises from £16,266.91 to £16,885.05. The leader’s special responsibility allowance rises from £53,493.38 to £55,526.13. A deputy cabinet member’s extra allowance rises from £16,048.01 to £16,657.83, on top of the basic allowance. So when one councillor asked in the chamber what, exactly, a deputy cabinet member does and whether the role should be properly codified, that was not some eccentric outbreak of curiosity. It was a perfectly sensible question from the distant past, when people still liked to know what they were paying for.

There is another awkward little detail in the paperwork. The panel’s review says 30 members responded to its survey. Kent has 81 councillors. That works out at roughly 37%. Which means the allowance scheme for the whole council was, at least in survey terms, informed by something closer to a determined minority than a stampede of democratic enthusiasm. Again, none of this is unlawful. It is just wonderfully County Hall: enough participation to claim consultation, not quite enough to silence the phrase “perhaps I missed the memo”.

To be fair, one technical point should be stated plainly. This was not a case of last year’s 5% cut being fully restored and then another 3.8% piled on top. The reduced baseline remains in place, and the scheme says a 5% reduction had already been applied compared with the previous year. So if anyone tries to say members simply grabbed back the whole lot in one gulp, that would be wrong. But it is equally true that the council still chose to award itself an uplift while defending a 3.99% rise for residents as part of the fiscal grown-up conversation. That is not illegality. It is just politics wearing comedy glasses.

The chamber debate, was often sharper than the final outcome. The amendment to freeze the rise for two years was argued on “optics”, on budget pressure, and on the slightly unfortunate fact that people in Kent are not currently floating through a golden age of spare cash. One councillor pointed out the obvious: after talk earlier in the meeting about meningitis, war in Iran and the cost-of-living crisis, the chamber was now focusing on “giving ourselves a pay rise”. Another said the Greens were consistent and did not “flip-flop”. The leader rejected the freeze, called delaying rises a “fool’s errand”, and said the 3.8% uplift was “entirely reasonable”. The freeze amendment fell by 17 votes to 47, with 8 abstentions. The main motion then passed by 45 votes to 22, with 5 abstentions.

There was also a telling row over what was, and was not, actually written down. The leader said the recommended allowances would allow an additional £81,000 for the member grant scheme in 2026/27, adding £1,000 for each member to spend on local projects. But the formal recommendation in the report approves the 3.8% increase, the October CPIH indexation method and the other scheme changes; it does not itself include a recommendation to approve that extra member-grant uplift. One councillor spotted the gap and said, in effect, that what is spoken into the microphone is one thing, but what appears in the recommendation is another. Quite right too. In county hall, as in plumbing, the leak is usually where the connection is missing.

And then came the little flourish at the end. Members were reminded that if they did not want to take the extra money, they could always donate it to charity. The written scheme does indeed allow any member to forgo all or part of their entitlement by notice in writing. So the official constitutional position appears to be this: vote yourself the rise first, then seek moral redemption later. It is a bit like being told the buffet is compulsory, but you can always jog home.

What does all this say about Reform UK at Kent County Council? Probably more than the speeches intended. On council tax, 3.99% is solemn necessity. On councillors’ allowances, 3.8% is “entirely reasonable”. On inflation, the latest published number is 3.2%, but the administration found a way to use the older, slightly fatter 3.8% instead. On public mood, members were warned this looked dreadful. They did it anyway.

That, really, is the whole joke. Reform came in talking tough about value for money. Then County Hall presented Kent residents with one increase to endure and councillors with another to enjoy. Guess which one was described as reasonable.

As the chair put it after the vote, “That’s inflation for you.”

Quite.

The Shepway Vox Team

The Velvet Voices of Voxatiousness