County council still waiting for arrival of 'DOGE' audit

STAFFORDSHIRE County Council is still awaiting notification of a “DOGE audit’, two months after the authority came under the control of Reform UK.

- By Kerry Ashdown Local Democracy Reporter

Party leader Nigel Farage, pictured, spoke about Reform UK's plans to send a team of software engineers, data analysts and forensic auditors to comb through the county council's finances in order to identify savings when he visited Stafford's County Buildings last month.

The team has become known as DOGE in the wake of the Department of Government Efficiency set up in the US under the second Trump administration. It was brought in at Kent County Council - another authority now led by Reform UK - last month.

Councillor Simon Tagg, a former cabinet member under the previous Conservative administration, questioned how DOGE's work would fit in with the authority's own corporate governance rules during an Audit and Standards Committee meeting. Committee members were being asked to approve the updated Code of Corporate Governance at the time.