What Doesn’t Reform UK Want Kent Taxpayers to See? Another Council Audit Meeting Goes Dark

For the second time in less than three weeks, Kent County Council’s Governance & Audit Committee has met without an accessible live webcast. With millions in spending, financial irregularities and serious governance weaknesses on the agenda, why can’t Kent residents watch the councillors responsible for holding the council to account?

Remember Reform UK’s promises to Kent taxpayers?

On 21 May 2026, council leader Linden Kemkaran declared:

We set a responsible budget and developed a deliberate focus on how every penny of taxpayers’ money is managed and spent.

Her deputy, Brian Collins, had promised that Reform’s efficiency team was investigating:

every nook and cranny is being investigated to identify areas of waste

Fine words. Every penny watched. Every corner examined. Apparently, just don’t expect to watch the councillors doing the examining.

On 16 October, The Shepway Vox Team reported that KCC’s Governance & Audit Committee had met the previous day without its expected live webcast. The public couldn’t watch councillors question officers about financial accounts, mounting pressures and three red value-for-money assessments.

On Tuesday 3 November, it happened again.

The committee met at 10am in County Hall’s Council Chamber. Yet KCC’s webcast library displayed the now familiar message:

“Webcast has not started yet.”

A second meeting. Another missing live broadcast. And no publicly established explanation.

The committee that’s supposed to hold the council accountable

This isn’t an obscure working group discussing the colour of the office carpets.

Under Sections 17.2–17.8 of KCC’s Constitution, the Governance & Audit Committee has thirteen elected members and provision for two independent, non-voting members.

Its purpose, under Section 17.6, is to provide independent, high-level oversight of governance, risk, finance and internal controls.

More importantly, Section 17.6(b) expressly requires arrangements for “internal challenge and public accountability”.

Section 17.7 makes the committee responsible for monitoring financial management, savings plans, value for money, internal controls, counter-fraud arrangements and audit findings. It even approves the council’s financial accounts and Annual Governance Statement.

So where’s the public accountability when the public cannot hear the questions?

What couldn’t Kent taxpayers watch?

The 3 November agenda contained twelve items, including Oracle Cloud, internal audit, counter fraud, corporate risks and treasury management.

All were listed as unrestricted. Two supporting enclosures were separately withheld on statutory exemption grounds, but the agenda identified no exempt meeting items.

Consider Oracle.

The council’s technology programme began with a £15 million implementation budget in 2023. The latest forecast stands at £46.891 million, against approved funding of £43.963 million.

Even after identifying cost reductions, KCC still needs to find another £944,000 in efficiencies. Its Internal Audit review also recorded 72 observations, of which 25 were not accepted by management.

Were Reform councillors challenging those figures? Did opposition members ask why a programme had become so expensive? Who questioned the rejected audit observations?

We cannot establish what was said without an accessible recording or full account of proceedings.

Then there’s counter fraud.

The supplementary report recorded 411 irregularity referrals during the first six months of 2026/27. These included 68 home-to-school transport contract-management irregularities worth £256,000, alongside £45,000 of invoicing for adult social care services not delivered. Recovery action was reported; these figures shouldn’t be mistaken for proven criminal fraud.

Surely identifying and recovering public money is precisely what Reform’s promised penny-pinching should involve?

Yet residents couldn’t watch how members scrutinised those findings.

Even the auditors question the committee

There’s another deliciously uncomfortable irony.

Committee chairman Michael Brown’s annual report acknowledges external auditor Grant Thornton’s assessment:

The Governance and Audit Committee is an essential component of the Council’s control environment. However, our work has established committee arrangements are not optimal and need to be strengthened.

The report identifies weaknesses in member engagement, constructive challenge, training, understanding responsibilities and forward planning.

In other words, the committee was examining concerns about its own effectiveness. Without an accessible live webcast.

Transparency shouldn’t depend on travelling to Maidstone

Sections 15.21–15.24 of KCC’s Constitution protect public attendance and recording of open meetings. They don’t expressly require KCC to livestream every committee meeting.

But the council adopted a webcasting protocol in 2013 to improve transparency and accountability. Its own webcasting service promises access to live proceedings and archived recordings.

The absence of a webcast doesn’t prove deliberate concealment or unlawful conduct. Nor does it establish that Reform councillors or opposition members failed to ask difficult questions.

That’s exactly the problem. We can’t see whether they did.

And Reform isn’t alone in needing to answer. The Liberal Democrats, Conservatives, Greens, Labour and independent members also have responsibilities to challenge, question and pursue explanations.

If they did, Kent residents deserve to hear them.

If they didn’t, residents deserve to know that too.

Chairman Michael Brown and KCC’s Monitoring Officer should explain why both meetings lacked accessible live coverage, whether recordings exist, who authorised any decision not to broadcast and when the public will be able to see the proceedings.

Reform promised to watch every penny and investigate every nook and cranny.

The least Kent taxpayers should expect is the opportunity to watch the people making those promises being held to account.

After all, if councillors are looking after our money, why can’t we watch them do it?

The Shepway Vox Team

Deliriously Delicious Dissent Since 2015