Reform UK to run East Sussex County Council
By Huw Oxburgh, BBC-funded Local Democracy Reporter
Reform UK has formed a minority administration to run East Sussex County Council.
East Sussex county councillors met on Thursday (May 21) for the first time since the local elections on 7 May.
Andy Woolley, leader of the council’s Reform UK group, was elected as council leader by a margin of just one vote.
Cllr Woolley was elected with 25 votes. Of these, 21 votes were cast by Reform councillors, with the remaining votes coming from the council’s three Conservative councillors and its sole independent Stephen Shing.
Liberal Democrat group leader Kathryn Field attracted 24 votes.
One councillor — Neil Cleaver, Reform UK councillor for Hailsham New Town — was not present for the meeting. The Local Democracy Reporting Service understands that Cllr Cleaver was unable to attend the meeting as a result of being called to jury duty.
In total, there are 22 Reform county councillors, 13 Liberal Democrats, 11 Greens, three Conservatives and one Independent Democrat. A total of 26 seats were needed to form a majority administration. Labour lost all its representation in East Sussex.
Who is the new county council leader?
Cllr Woolley set out some details of his personal history and plans for the coming term. He said: “Before I tell you what we are going to do I want to say something about who I am. I grew up in Chatham in Kent.
“From the age of nine, it was my mother, my brother and me. My mum had two jobs to keep us housed and fed together. Money was never loose. At Christmas we got one big present from the catalogue.
“On Friday evening we walked two miles to a pub, not for a drink — not at nine-years-old — but to pay into a tonto, a Christmas savings club; £2 a week for my mum and 50 pence each for me and my brother. It paid out a week before Christmas.
“That walk in the dark, in the cold, every Friday night; that is what financial planning looked like for a family like ours.”
He said he had spent 40 years working in London’s insurance market, adding: “I tell you this so you understand how I think about money that passes through this council. It is not abstract, it belongs to the people and we owe it to them to spend it as though it does.
“Let me direct about what we are here to do. This council must protect the services that matter most — adult social care, children’s services, SEND — they are not line items in a spreadsheet, they are the point of this council’s existence.
“We will lobby the government hard for funding that reflects the true cost of care in this county like ours.”
Who was a close second?
The council’s other 24 councillors — made up of 13 Liberal Democrats and 11 Green Party councillors — had voted for Lib Dem group leader Kathryn Field.
Cllr Field set out what she saw to be the greatest challenge facing the council.
She said: “The council’s finances have been assessed by CIPFA [Chartered Institute of Public Finance Accountants] and [auditors] Grant Thornton and found to be well-managed. But years of underfunding from central government have contributed to an enormous debt.
“It is not my place to lecture anybody here about matters of government underfunding, but suffice it to say that running a local authority is not the same as running a business in the private sector.
“The authority has a huge debt — £201m currently and, I understand, rising. We have also taken out a loan to pay a £55m budget deficit. This is an enormous strain on everybody.”
She added: “We need a repayment plan, which doesn’t hurt residents. For years, governments have paid lip service to adult social care and … the NHS … however, funding has to reflect this.
“Demographically ... as we all know, we have an ageing population in this county. There is a lot of work to be done in government to make them understand this, but more so to understand the extra cost it incurs.”
What the other parties say
New Green group leader Julia Hilton set out what she saw as her party’s role in comments directed to Cllr Woolley.
She said: “As Greens we pride ourselves on collaboration, so where there is common ground and an ambition to be better we will happily contribute our knowledge and experience to the future shaping of services and hope that you will be open as an administration to working with all of us across the chamber in that endeavour.
“I was pleased to hear that you are wanting to focus on local issues and that you, as leader, want to distance yourself from some of the more extreme elements of your party. The Green group will certainly be on the lookout for any signs of pandering to a divisive agenda.”
Conservative group leader Paul Redstone, councillor for Northern Rother, set out why his group had voted the way it did.
He said: “Let me be absolutely clear; there have been no deals — either formal or informal — with Reform, the Liberal Democrats or Greens.
“As Conservatives we care deeply about our community and the three of us will seek to be the voice of reason. We will be constructive opposition looking at each issue on a case-by-case basis, at all times thinking about the interests of the residents of East Sussex. We will seek to hold Reform as the executive to account.”
He added: “Reform are clearly the largest party. Were they not to form the administration as councillors we could rightly be seen as trying to subvert the expressed interests of voters. I know that some members have used numbers about the share of total votes compared to other parties, but in our system it is seats that count.”
Cllr Shing said: “I recognise that whatever decision I had made earlier today 50 per cent of councillors in this chamber would be pleased and the others despondent.
“I am not here to criticise any individual or political party but …public opinion changes all the time. There is no perfect party, no perfect leader and no perfect administration and generally it is for the public to decide whether those elected deliver for the residents.”
He added: “Cllr Wooley and I have found common ground on a number of local issues and the need to make the best use of the council’s limited resources. While we do not agree on many things, I believe that we can work together constructively in the interests of the residents.”
The meeting had begun with the election of Martin Kenward, Reform UK councillor for Bexhill East, as the council’s chairman.
Voting followed the same pattern as the election of Cllr Woolley, with the three Conservatives and Cllr Shing voting in his favour. The authority’s other councillors had instead supported Kelvin Williams, Liberal Democrat representative for Uckfield North.
Part of the chairman’s role includes the ability to use a casting vote to break any ties. Cllr Kenward was called on to use this during the meeting; breaking a tied vote to see Reform UK’s Victoria Carson elected as the council’s deputy chairwoman.
All-male cabinet named
Cllr Woolley also named his cabinet for the year. It will comprise: Cllr Pete Morley, lead member for economy; Cllr Stephen Chapman, lead member for resources and climate change; Cllr Mark Estcourt, lead member for adult social care and health; Cllr Daniel Bradley, lead member for children and families; Paul Soane, lead member for Education; and Cllr Peter Griffiths, lead member for transport and environment.
Cllr Woolley will also be lead member for strategic management and economic development in addition to his role as council leader.
This cabinet makeup saw some criticism from Liberal Democrat councillor Sarah Osborne, who said: “I was disappointed to see that you have appointed an all-male cabinet and that inevitably means that it is not reflective of our residents.
“Homogenous groups are prone to group-think and all male leadership contradicts commitment to equality and inclusivity and that can lead to blind spot in policy.”
In response to these comments, Cllr Woolley said: “We have no women in our cabinet, however you will see that I’ve appointed women to a lot of the committees, because that is where a lot of the groundwork is done.
“I would expect that those ladies, those women, as well as all the other councillors around here that have expertise — and there is expertise within my party and my group of councillors — that they will come back to me and to the portfolio holders and give them direction about what they are seeing on the ground once they got in and actually look at the processes and practices that we are following in conjunction with the officers delivering those services.”
Reform UK secured its first county councillor in Eastbourne at the election: Roy Peche gained Sovereign from the Conservatives as the party had a strong showing across the town.
But the Liberal Democrats held seven of nine voting areas in the town while the Conservatives took only one area as their share of the vote was well down in all seats. Overall turnout was 43.9% - up from 36.56% when the last East Sussex County Council elections were held in May 2021.
