Taxpayers in Oxford funded a series of plane journeys to reunite a child with their family in India, a freedom of information request has revealed. Oxford City Council spent £1,368.76 of taxpayer funds on flights with Air India and Air Etihad, reuniting the child with their family and later carrying out statutory “welfare visits”. While the Liberal Democrat-run local authority has not provided details on the context of the flights, the incident has sparked outcry about council spending – prompting one official to demand a DOGE-style approach to slashing unneccessary expenditure.
Hao Du, Oxford’s only Reform councillor, said a system modelled after Elon Musk’s US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) would ensure constiuents recieved “value for money”. “This is precisely why every council in the UK needs a DOGE,” he said. “Residents in Oxfordshire pay some of the highest council tax rates in the country, yet essential public services remain in disarray.”
“It is painfully clear that we are not receiving value for money,” he told the Oxford Mail. “Local residents will rightly question why Oxfordshire City Council is using taxpayers’ money to fund flights to India.
“Public funds should be directed toward local priorities, and it is difficult to see how this expenditure delivers any tangible benefit to the people of Oxfordshire.”
A spokesperson for the city authority said: “We would never discuss individual detail relating to a current or former child in care.
“When a child comes into the care of a local authority, that council then shares parental authority. As part of considerations around a child’s future and return to their family, a council would always deal with family members as part of formal assessments.
“In small numbers of circumstances, it may be that these family members live in other parts of the world.”
Reform UK set up its own DOGE, designed to identify wasteful spending, shortly after taking control of 10 councils in the local elections on May 1.
Zia Yusuf, who was appointed head of the department following his brief departure from the insurgent party last month, alleged that taxpayer funds in Kent had gone towards paying for daytrips for migrants – although his claims that the money had been taken from an “asylum budget” was questioned by a Lib Dem MP, who said such a pot didn’t exist.
There was reportedly a surge in union membership among council staff in Reform-run areas after the local elections, with Unison claiming it saw an average jump of 167% in areas including Kent, Derbyshire, Lincolnshire and Durham.
The GMB trade union said its membership had also soared among employees newly under Reform rule, with national officer Rachel Harrison accusing Nigel Farage of “attacking low-paid staff’s terms and conditions”.