Five Reform Councils Pay 55p a Mile — So Why Are KCC Staff Still Getting 45p?

This is a Guest post by a Kent County Council employee

I work for Kent County Council. My job requires me to travel across a wide operational area, around Kent and sometimes beyond it, at different times of the day. I use my own car because that is what the job requires. I buy it, insure it for business use, service it, repair it, replace the tyres and watch the mileage — and its value — move in opposite directions.

KCC pays me 45p a mile.

That might once have sounded reasonable. It sounds rather different when diesel has just reached an all-time UK high of 199.18p a litre. The RAC says diesel has risen 56.8p a litre, or 39.9%, since the end of February. The fuel going into the car costs more, and every business mile still brings servicing, tyres, repairs, insurance, depreciation and ordinary wear and tear with it.

Yet KCC is still advertising jobs at 45p per mile. An Enablement Support Worker vacancy published in June states “Travel time paid & Mileage paid at 45p per mile”. Another KCC Enablement Supervisor advert says applicants must have the ability to travel across the required geographical area and, again, offers 45p a mile. These aren’t jobs where driving is some occasional lifestyle choice. Travelling is built into the work.

And this is where Reform-led KCC has a question to answer.

From 6 April 2026, the Government increased HMRC’s Approved Mileage Allowance Payment for employees using their own cars and vans for business from 45p to 55p per mile for the first 10,000 business miles. The old rate had stood since 2011. HMRC has even told employers reimbursing below the new approved rate that they “may want to increase” what they pay employees in line with it.

Let’s deal with the legal point immediately. KCC isn’t automatically breaking the law by paying 45p. The 55p HMRC figure is the amount an employer can reimburse tax-free under the approved mileage system; it isn’t a statutory minimum mileage payment which every employer must pay. Employees paid less can claim Mileage Allowance Relief on the difference.

But that isn’t really the question.

The question is why Reform-run Kent County Council has not matched the new 55p rate, particularly for employees whom KCC requires to use their own vehicles to deliver council services.

Reform took control of KCC in May 2025. On taking office, council leader Linden Kemkaran said every Cabinet decision would be driven by “maximising productivity and delivering value for money”, while also saying that KCC staff cared about doing their jobs to the best of their ability. A few weeks later she promised a “laser-like focus” on saving money and spending Kent taxpayers’ cash more efficiently.

KCC’s own Reforming Kent strategy goes further. It promises to challenge long-held assumptions, reject the status quo where it fails residents, pursue value for money and cost efficiency, and “reward those who work hard and achieve on merit”.

Fine.

Then challenge this assumption: why should an employee provide their private car to KCC at a mileage rate that Government has now increased by 10p?

That 10p doesn’t sound much until you multiply it by the miles.

Someone driving 5,000 qualifying business miles receives £2,250 at 45p. At 55p it would be £2,750 — a £500 difference. At 8,000 miles the difference is £800. At 10,000 miles it reaches £1,000 a year.

And saying “claim it back from HMRC” doesn’t solve that problem. Mileage Allowance Relief is tax relief on the shortfall, not reimbursement of the missing 10p. If an employee has a £1,000 mileage shortfall, HMRC doesn’t simply send them £1,000. The tax relief depends on their tax position.

So this isn’t some fanciful demand that no local authority could afford or administer. More importantly, it isn’t a case of Reform-run Kent being compared with Labour, Conservative or Liberal Democrat councils. Derbyshire, Lincolnshire, Staffordshire, Lancashire and Nottinghamshire are all Reform-controlled county councils, yet each has either moved to 55p or has a published policy tying employee business mileage to HMRC-approved rates.

Derbyshire increased its employee rate from 45p to 55p and backdated it to April. Staffordshire increased its casual and redeployment rates from 45p to 55p, backdated them to 6 April and said its policy automatically follows HMRC. Lincolnshire’s current travel policy simply lists the HMRC-approved rate: 55p for the first 10,000 miles.

Lancashire’s published employee allowances policy says business mileage is reimbursed at HMRC-approved mileage rates and that those rates “will be updated in line with any changes to the HMRC rates”. Nottinghamshire’s current travelling-allowances document is equally explicit: mileage for authorised County Council business is determined using HMRC-approved rates.

That makes Kent the obvious question mark.

Why is one Reform-run county council still advertising 45p a mile when other Reform administrations have either adopted 55p or written HMRC rates directly into their mileage policies?

More awkwardly still, KCC itself has previously advertised jobs on the basis that mileage would follow HMRC rates. A Children’s Services Business Support Officer vacancy advertised in March 2025 offered “reimbursed mileage in line with HMRC rates”. Yet KCC’s 2026 Enablement vacancies have continued to advertise a fixed 45p.

That deserves explaining.

Does KCC have one mileage policy for everybody, or different arrangements for different groups of staff? Was “in line with HMRC rates” simply loose wording in an old recruitment advert? Is 45p written into employees’ contractual terms? Has KCC formally reviewed the rate since HMRC moved to 55p? Were UNISON, GMB and Unite consulted? And who ultimately decided that Kent should continue at 45p while other Reform-controlled county councils took a different approach?

Because there is another way of looking at “value for money”.

If KCC needs an employee to travel 100 miles in their own car to deliver a council service, somebody has to meet the cost of putting that vehicle on the road. Leaving the reimbursement rate at 45p doesn’t make fuel, servicing, tyres, insurance, repairs or depreciation any cheaper. It simply determines how much of those costs KCC reimburses and how much remains with the employee.

At 5,000 business miles, the difference between 45p and 55p is £500. At 8,000 miles it is £800. At 10,000 miles it is £1,000.

Perhaps KCC has calculated the total cost of moving to 55p and decided that its finances cannot support it. Perhaps officers have advised against it. Perhaps the rate hasn’t been reviewed at all.

We don’t know.

And that is precisely why KCC should publish the figures.

Tell staff how many private-car business miles KCC reimbursed during 2025/26. Tell taxpayers what that cost at the current rates. Calculate what paying 55p for the first 10,000 eligible miles would add. Publish the date on which 45p was last formally reviewed, who participated in that review and whether recognised trade unions were consulted.

Then explain why Kent’s position differs from Derbyshire, Staffordshire and Lincolnshire, where Reform administrations are operating with 55p arrangements, and from Lancashire and Nottinghamshire, whose published employee policies link business-mileage reimbursement directly to HMRC-approved rates.

That comparison matters because it removes a very easy excuse. This cannot simply be presented as some ideological difference between Reform and councils controlled by other political parties. Other Reform-controlled county councils have reached different conclusions from Kent.

So the question becomes much narrower — and much harder to avoid:

What is different about Kent?

HMRC moved to 55p. Reform-run Derbyshire moved to 55p and backdated it. Reform-run Staffordshire moved to 55p and backdated it. Reform-run Lincolnshire currently publishes 55p. Reform-run Lancashire says its employee mileage follows HMRC-approved rates. Reform-run Nottinghamshire says the same.

Meanwhile, KCC has continued advertising some jobs at 45p a mile.

Nobody needs to pretend that 55p is a statutory minimum. It isn’t. Nor does the fact that another council pays 55p prove that Kent must do the same.

But after more than a year of a Reform administration built around efficiency, productivity and challenging the way County Hall operates, employees who provide their own cars to carry out KCC’s work are entitled to know why five other Reform-run county councils appear to have aligned themselves with the new HMRC position while Kent has not.

And ultimately the question is remarkably simple:

Why is Reform-run Kent County Council still paying some staff 45p a mile — and who made the decision to leave them there?

The views and opinions expressed in this guest post are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Shepway Vox Team.

The Shepway Vox Team

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