DODGY DOGE DISASTER?
GUEST ARTICLE: One Freedom of Information Request, from one council, could be the nail in the coffin for Reform's DOGE unit.
One of the things I’m hoping to build with Bearly Politics is a platform that doesn’t just carry my voice (which I’m sure many of you must be growing weary of by now), but features other people doing essential work to hold power to account.
A few weeks ago, I had the absolute joy of publishing a piece with
, debunking the nonsense conspiracy theories around GLP-1s. Today, I’m delighted to share a new guest piece - this time from someone doing brilliant investigative work on the Reform Party: .Through his Twitter/X account and the podcast that he hosts with Sally Dodgson, No Holds Barred, Don has been digging deep into the mysterious workings of Reform UK’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). While others parrot press releases, Don’s been filing FOIs, poring over council minutes, and mapping the widening gap between Reform’s grandstanding and reality. What follows is equal parts forensic and farcical - a tale of blocked access, baffling bureaucracy, and big talk that collapses under scrutiny.
It’s the kind of work that deserves a bigger platform - and sits alongside recent work I’ve done here too, including a piece prompted by confirmation from a Kent County Councillor that no, local taxpayer money is not being used to pay for TV licences for asylum seekers.
I'd like to begin by thanking West Northamptonshire council for being so very efficient in their minute keeping and agenda writing. It's given me a great deal of information — far more than I asked for.
TL;DR — UK DOGE is a DONKEY
I asked seven questions in my FOIs to West Northants, Kent, Durham, Nottinghamshire and Lancashire county councils. I am now only waiting on a response from Lancashire.
The one I thought might be the big fish, Kent, responded today, as well as West Northants — to be honest nothing much came out of it, but I'll get to that a bit further down.
The preamble and questions I posed to each council was as follows:
Hello <insert name of council here> Council, I have a couple of questions that I'd be grateful if you'd clarify for me and our listeners/viewers on No Holds Barred Pod.
Reform and their DOLGE lead, Zia Yusuf, have publicly stated that:
“a team of software engineers, data analysts and forensic auditors will audit <insert name of council here>'s spending”.
This raises questions, and we have already had some of your residents querying this. So, could you answer the following so we are able to chat about it on our podcast?
1) Does this mean that all, currently contracted, auditors will be terminated?
2) What personal data of residents will be accessed by 'DOGE'?
3) How will this data gathered by 'DOGE' be stored? i.e. will it be stored outside the council's current IT provision?
4) Where are your written documents that detail the adherence to GDPR of the 'DOGE' team?
5) Specifically, who are the people in 'DOGE' that will be given free access to the council's entire data archive and budgetary plans?
6) Do you have a signed ISA (information Sharing Agreement) with 'DOGE'?
7) Has a data protection impact assessment been carried out for this new service, and where can we read it?
As you may, or may not, know, I had some quick replies from Durham and Nottinghamshire, confirming that DOGE were nothing to do with their councils, at this time. I will follow this up in a few months.
Let's quickly get Kent out of the way. It wasn't anywhere as forthcoming as I'd thought it might be, considering that this is where Zia Yusuf and Nathaniel Fried launched their DOGESCAPADE a couple of months ago, to great fanfare in the media.
Basically, they responded to say that DOGE were not granted any special dispensation and could only access publicly available data.
The rest of the FOI was bland and said they held no information. The same answer as the other early declarations — DOGE are impotent at the council.
Kent is a dead cat.
Right, let's move on to the juicy stuff, and I never thought I'd say this but … bring it on, West Northamptonshire Council.
I should state that all the information I'm about to give is already in the public domain or is available to be reused under the terms of an Open Government Licence.
Now, this bit is long and could prove tedious. I'm going to talk about local governance and suchlike. There will be a synopsis at the bottom for those who are not as fastidiously minded as I am. Feel free to jump the barriers.
Where to start?
An Agenda. That's always a great place to jump off from, and the very document I was provided is here:
You can read it here.
I will run through each of my questions and their answers shortly, but I was specifically directed to Item 8 on this agenda. On a quick skim, it initially appeared to be the motherlode. The exact information I'd been searching for. We'll get there in a sec!
Firstly, I'll document their answers by question asked:
1) Does this mean that all, currently contracted, auditors will be terminated?
They directed me to their current external auditors; Grant Thornton. An expected and well documented response.
Link here.
2) What personal data of residents will be accessed by 'DOGE'?
Personal information held by the Council is retained and used under strict regulation. Councillors and Political Parties do not have direct access to Council systems including those holding personal data. There are only a few circumstances when a Councillor may view personal data:
Formal work on Council Committee or Cabinet, e.g. where an identifiable person has approached the Committee. This is set out in the West Northamptonshire's Council Constitution and within the national Code of Conduct which can be seen on the Local Government Association website.
Working with their ward constituents. Here, they are subject to the Councillor Privacy Notice which can be seen on the Council website.
Councillors and political parties have a statutory right to see elections data including the electoral register.
Under some circumstances, e.g. Property Licensing hearings, any submissions will normally be provided in full as required by regulation including name, contact details and address.
3) How will this data gathered by 'DOGE' be stored? i.e. will it be stored outside the council's current IT provision?
Section 1(a) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 places an obligation on a public authority to inform in writing any person making a request as to whether it holds the information.
No information is held relating to this point of your request.
4) Where are your written documents that detail the adherence to GDPR of the 'DOGE' team?
Section 1(a) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 places an obligation on a public authority to inform in writing any person making a request as to whether it holds the information.
No information is held relating to this point of your request.
5) Specifically, who are the people in 'DOGE' that will be given free access to the council's entire data archive and budgetary plans?
This is not information subject to the provisions of the FOI Act.
The requested information is not held by West Northamptonshire Council as stipulated under Section 1(1)(a) of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Initial dialogue has taken place, however no DOGE work has started as yet.
They have missed my last two questions out, and I will follow up, but the next sentence more than makes up for it:
“A paper will be going to cabinet on 16 July 2025, link below:
https://westnorthants.moderngov.co.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=143&MId=2728&Ver=4
Please refer to item 8”
So. Let us now follow that link to Item 8 and discover truly what DOGE is.
Item 8 in the West Northamptonshire county council agenda deals, specifically, with Reform/DOGE and their requests for data. I'm going to clip out the most relevant bits, but you can read it all for yourself on the link above.
As I said earlier, this is public information, but it can take a bit of sleuthing to track it down.
Item 8 deals with the request for the Provision of Financial Data — in slightly less obscure terms, it's the stuff DOGE/Reform want access to.
Because West Northants appear to function as a proper council/local government body, they have gone to great lengths to document this.
When we look at the detailed meeting agenda, the meat of the story begins at point 5.9 Department of Government Efficiency ('DOGE') Team.
5.9 — This sets out the initial purpose of DOGE and that Kent were the first to receive the team but goes to lengths to point out the council have not actually received any formal communications from Reform or DOGE.
It goes on to say that they have already collated some publicly available information, based on the Kent visit. Again, kudos to West Northants for their anticipation and due diligence.
5.10 — Two Reform executives — unnamed — visited the council and were met by the senior leadership team. No data was shared.
5.11 — This entailed a second visit and the creation of Appendix 2 — the data requested by DOGE. I will share this later, as it's pretty significant.
5.12 — Reform told the council that they had a team of experts at hand to analyse data — again, unnamed.
5.13 — DOGE tell the council that they know more than PWC and other external auditors. No evidence.
5.14 — They go to a different school.
5.15 — Reform are offering their services for free [except sandwiches: not so much at Worcestershire].
5.16 — This is a long-winded breakdown of several areas, but the essence is that the council is extremely wary of sharing information with Reform/DOGE. They go into great detail about the legal ramifications and political too.
West Northants council are particularly concerned about the political outlook and do not wish to be seen to be favouring Reform.
The main takeaway from the entire discourse, though, is that, even if DOGE were granted access [a far cry at this point], they would not be allowed to share their findings with the media or anyone else that stood to gain politically.
It's an absolute body blow to Zia Yusuf and Farage. They hastily set up this odd quango to be seen to be achieving something, but even if they were able to produce some council savings, they could not tell anyone about it.
Now, call me cynical, but this seemed like the entire point of the DOGESCAPADE; to boast about how Head Boy Zia could reduce council waste and highlight some of the Culture Wars issues they are desperately trying to exploit. He may well do it, but it turns out that we can never know.
A very quick round up of the remaining DOGE points on the agenda.
6.1 — A paragraph about how the council has no obligation to share any data with them. It might, though, if it feels like it.
7.1-3 — This lays out the facts that DOGE have promised zero cost to the council, but then states that some council time and manpower will be used up. It also states that they have already begun work on 2026/7 budgeting, so most work, if it came to pass, by DOGE would be outdated within minutes.
7.2 — Legal. This section states that any time or money or manpower used by DOGE/Reform must begin with a stated aim and clearly laid out purpose. It goes on to say that the council would sue as a result of any data loss or damage arising from a potential contract.
It also carries on by saying that, as a council, it may not promote a single political party ahead of any others and not be deemed to be favouring one party.
7.3 — Risk. No data or information is to be shared by Reform/DOGE as a third party. No media. No boasting. Nothing.
APPENDIX Two — Information Requested by DOGE:
This is a fascinating chart and is here:
So you can see from the table above that they are deeply interested in budgets etc. but also, and mostly, wedge culture war issues: asylum hotels, housing and potholes.
Is there an agenda there? I'd say, yes.
I find myself at the end of this article now, and it befalls me to write a synopsis for those that skipped ahead.
Firstly, from all the councils I've spoken to, none of them, have had serious contact with DOGE, except West Northants. They are the noise in the darkness so far.
Even with this most diligent of councils, they have confirmed my suspicions — DOGE HAVE NOTHING. They have less access than Sky News or me in a capacity as a journalist. There has been no motion passed to allow their transgressions across the digital landscape of council databases.
A couple of weeks ago, I postulated that Reform would silently reverse their DOGE announcements and pretend that it didn't happen. This information almost confirms my suspicions. The council most heavily intertwined in DOGE hasn't even given them the go ahead yet, and look likely to reject it.
DOGE is a DEAD DUCK
I'd love for anyone involved in the council or Reform to correct me. I wait.
You are welcome to share this to anyone — Zia blocked me so he'd be a great candidate. I'd also appreciate a tag/credit if you're going to strip some content or data. Please reach out to me if you want the PDFs. Thanks.
Further Reading:
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Really interesting & informative as always. Not something that will impact on me currently but as things progress who knows.
Illuminating, and very well evidenced article. Thanks Bear for sharing.