We are now witnessing a pincer movement of failure: a National Government that provides a fiscal mirage instead of support, and a local Labour Administration that remains addicted to borrowing while its operational strategy fragments into chaos.
The headlines from the Provisional Local Government Finance Settlement as discussed on the 13th January 2026 (Agenda Item 5) and the Norse reorganisation (Agenda Item 11) paint a picture of an authority that is no longer just “fragile”—it is fundamentally broken.
Read my previous analysis.
The National Government’s Fiscal Mirage
The Labour Government’s “multi-year” settlement, announced in December, was trumpeted as a return to stability. The reality, as revealed in Medway’s own Cabinet report, is a cruel deception.
While the Government claims Medway’s “Core Spending Power” will increase by 16.2%, the report admits this is a purely theoretical figure. It is not a grant; it is a permission slip to tax you more. This 16.2% is predicated on the Council hitting residents with the maximum allowable Council Tax increase of 4.99%—a move that effectively shifts the burden of national failure directly onto the doorsteps of Hempstead, Wigmore, and the wider Medway community.
Worse still, the settlement is actually £7.920 million lower than the Council’s own (already pessimistic) budget assumptions from November. Let that sink in: even with a Labour Government in Whitehall and a Labour Administration in Gun Wharf, the funding gap is widening, not closing.
This brings the Council’s total Exceptional Financial Support (EFS) borrowing to a staggering £32 million to date—money borrowed simply to keep the lights on and cover day-to-day overspends. The report explicitly states that this settlement is “insufficient” to close the budget gap. The “bailout addiction” continues, with the Council forced to go back to the Treasury, cap-in-hand, for even more EFS for 2026/27.
The Silence of the "Medway Three"
Perhaps the most galling aspect of this funding failure is the deafening silence from our local representatives in Westminster. We were told during the election that having Labour MPs working in tandem with a Labour Council and a Labour Government would “unlock” Medway’s potential.
Instead, local MPs and former Medway Councillors Naushabah Khan (Gillingham & Rainham), Tris Osborne (Chatham & Aylesford), and Lauren Edwards (Rochester & Strood) have shown no backbone in fighting a settlement that leaves their own doorsteps nearly £8 million short of what was required. Where is the “fight for Medway” we were promised?
Rather than standing up for their constituents against a Treasury that clearly views Medway as an afterthought, our three MPs appear content to be lobby-fodder for a legislative agenda that harms local businesses and renters, while remaining mute on the bankruptcy of the very Council they once served on or campaigned for. They have traded local advocacy for party loyalty, leaving Medway residents facing an uncertain future.
Local Incompetence: Reorganising the Deckchairs
While the funding vanishes, the Labour Cabinet is busy with bureaucratic tinkering. Agenda Item 11 details the “unbundling” of Medway Norse—a move away from a single “Total Facilities Management” model to a fragmented “Hybrid” model involving ten separate specialist contracts.
The Administration claims this will bring “clarity.” From a conservative fiscal perspective, it looks like a recipe for higher overheads and coordination failure. By stripping away Facilities Management and Greenspace functions from the Norse joint venture, they are creating “dis-economies of scale.”
What does this mean for the average resident? It means that the fixed corporate costs of the remaining services—most crucially Waste Collection and SEN Transport—will now have to be spread across a smaller total budget. This creates an indirect “overhead pressure” that will inevitably drive up the cost of emptying your bins and transporting our most vulnerable children. We are moving from a “one-stop-shop” to a bureaucratic maze of ten different private contractors, overseen by a newly created (and expensive) in-house management team at Gun Wharf. My question to hapless Council Leader Vincent Maple – is the end of the weekly bin collection even closer after this reckless decision?
The Looming Business Rates Reset
Perhaps most worrying is the mention of the Business Rates Reset coming in 2026/27. For years, Medway has benefited from retaining a portion of its local business growth. The Government is now preparing to “reset” the system, essentially pulling the rug out from under local authorities.
While the Revenue Support Grant (RSG) is being used to “smooth” the impact over three years, this is merely a stay of execution. The Administration has no plan for when that smoothing ends, other than to hope for further intervention. They are governing quarter-to-quarter, bailout-to-bailout, while the structural deficit grows like a cancer.
The Bottom Line for Residents
The Medway Labour Cabinet seems incapable of recognizing that you cannot borrow your way out of a debt crisis. They have been “plunged” into this situation, yet their only response is to demand more from the taxpayer while fragmenting the services those taxes are supposed to pay for.
The forecast for the next three years is nothing short of catastrophic. With a £25 million deficit already projected for 2026/27, and structural gaps remaining in the following two years, the Council is staring at a cumulative shortfall that could exceed £60 million by 2029.
We are told that “diversity is our strength” by Leader Vince Maple, but as I have said before: diversity is no substitute for competence. Calling in CIPFA and trumpeting a “FIT Plan” has yielded nothing but a £7.9 million black hole and a reorganisation that puts our core services like waste collection at risk of soaring indirect costs.
As we look toward the May 2028 transition to the North Kent Unitary, the current Administration is ensuring that the new authority inherits not a functioning council, but a hollowed-out shell of debt and disparate contracts. The residents of Hempstead and Wigmore and Medway deserve better than to be the ATM for a failing experiment in local socialism.
The Leader of the Council, Cllr Vince Maple, seemed delighted to be raising the Palestinian Flag over Gun Wharf on Friday 28th November. Personally I found this to be deeply offensive, not only because it ignores the suffering and fear of our Jewish community following the October 7th attacks on Israel, but the flag has been used to terrorise the Jewish community here in the UK since Israel engaged the terrorists of Hamas in Gaza.
A Failure of Leadership Judgement The Council Leader’s duty is to unite Medway, not to engage in geopolitical posturing. This action raises serious questions about the Leader’s focus: is he prioritising local services or chasing national political headlines? It was notable just how few Members of the Council turned out for the Flag raising and there was no publicity on the Council’s official social media channels. When a flag is raised over Gun Wharf it is raised on behalf of us all. Recently, Cllr Maple has shown himself to be politically inept, and raising the flag of Palestine must raise questions over his wider judgement.
In my view the only flags that should ever be raised over Gun Wharf are the Union Flag, Cross of St George and the Medway Flag.
