Senior Conservative politicians are demanding the information watchdog open an investigation into the data requests made at Lancashire County Council by Reform UK.
Since gaining control of County Hall, Reform UK’s national arm has looked to bring a 'Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)’-style cost-cutting team to assess the authority’s finances and where savings can be made.
Nigel Farage’s party has requested a swathe of information from the council to begin the initiative based on the department in America that was set up by President Donald Trump and led until recently by Elon Musk.
However, shadow communities secretary Kevin Hollinrake has warned that handing the data to Reform is a “cyber-security disaster waiting to happen” as he wrote to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) calling for an investigation.
Data about the identities of whistleblowers, the names and addresses of people who receive Meals on Wheels, and the amount of cash foster carers receive could be revealed and put at risk in the broad package Reform has requested, the Tories claim.
In a meeting earlier this week, Councillor Stephen Atkinson, the Reform leader of the county council, called the arrival of DOGE “a lot of noise” and said he will engage with the national party through proper process and procedure.
His comment followed criticism from opposition leaders of the idea of an external party-affiliated unit being brought in to go through the county council’s books – which was branded 'undemocratic and unnecessary'.
Reform has set out plans to purge diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) roles and net zero initiatives, and wants to end remote working at local authorities it controls.
In a letter to the ICO, the Conservatives questioned who would be handling the data on behalf of Reform UK, which has said it will use a “unit of software engineers, data analysts and forensic auditors” to analyse the information.
In the letter, Mr Hollinrake said: “I believe the scale of such unauthorised data transfers across local government is a cyber-security disaster waiting to happen.
“There is a strong public interest in the Information Commissioner taking proactive steps to investigate and, if necessary, issue enforcement notices against the public authorities and Reform UK Ltd.
“I also suspect that council staff would welcome the support of the Information Commissioner, given the clear threats to sack them if they sound the alarm on breaches of the law.
“It is also not in the financial interests of local taxpayers for their council to be exposed to the liability of fines for breaching the law.”
Arron Banks – one of Reform UK’s leaders on the DOGE initiative – was also singled out by the Conservatives in their letter, which pointed to the £120,000 fine his company Eldon Insurance and then Leave.EU campaign received from the ICO over data breaches in 2019.
Mr Banks lost an appeal against the data breach in 2021.
READ MORE: 'Proper process will be followed' - Reform leader on Lancashire DOGE controversy
READ MORE: What Reform’s 'DOGE' team will be looking at when they visit Lancashire
The exact extent of the efficiency review is to be decided by the county council’s interim director of finance and commerce, in consultation with County Cllr Atkinson, chief executive Mark Wynn and the authority’s chief legal officer.
It appears there will be some overlap with the stated aims of the DOGE team to focus on the “financial resilience” of the authority and its “contractual arrangements with suppliers”.
Reform’s head of DOGE Zia Yusuf, who quit as party chair before quickly returning in the DOGE role, claimed the Conservatives “were desperate to cover up the corruption and waste of their now deposed local government regimes”.
He added: “It will not work.
“Just as they plundered hundreds of millions from the British taxpayers during Covid, they have done the same at councils.
“Reform councillors were voted in to expose it, and with the help of Reform’s Doge team, they will do just that.”
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