Draft:Joanne Monk

Joanne Monk is a politician in Worcestershire, who (as of May 2025) is the leader of the Reform Uk Group at Worcestershire County Council

Political Career

Joanne Monk first became a County Councillor as a member of The Conservative Party.

She had joined the party in 2017, and was first elected to represent Arrow Valley East in Redditch in 2021.

She defected to Reform UK in March 2025 ahead of the Worcestershire County Council elections in May 2025.

At the time Councillor Monk added: "We need real change. I think Labour and the Conservatives have become the same thing – high immigration, high taxes, high energy bills because of net zero. Only Reform will bring some common sense, and I can do a better job of representing my residents in a party people believe in”.

She became the second Reform County Councillor on Worcestershire County Council following the defection of Bill Hopkins, also from the Conservative Party, in 2024.

After the May 2025 County Elections ReformUK had won the most divisional seats but failed to secure a majority .

There followed a local leadership contest to elect the leader of the Reform Group at the Council.

The initial field comprised of Monk, Hopkins, and Alan Amos - all of whom are former Conservatives, and all having spent time in teh last County Council administration as members of the Conservative Party. The election was held on the 11th May at The Severn's Club in Stourport-on-Severn. After Amos withdrew his candidacy after being unable to secure enough support, the contest came to down to Bill Hopkins and Joanne Monk. The selection was won by Joanne Monk

Monk was joined on the Council by her son Ashley

Leadership of Reform Group at Worcestershire County Council

Monk's Leadership started off in difficulty.

After gaining the most divisional seats but failing to secure a majority at the County elections, Reform was left facing the prospect of a minority leadership.

Opposition Group Leaders have reported that The Reform Deputy Leader, David Taylor, reached out in attempts to gain agreements - but failed to offer incentives, instead demanding concessions to support Reform. These discussions did not succeed, and no agreements were reached with Reform.

First Full Council Meeting

At the first Full Council meeting on the 22nd May, the opposition parties worked together to secure their choice of Chair of the Council and Vice-Chair, and to fill the Chairs of Scrutiny panels. There had been two nominations for Chair David Taylor of Reform and Louis Stephen of the Green Party. Reform called for a named vote.

There were also two nominations for Vice-Chair - David Taylor again, and Paul Bennet of the Liberal Democrats. Reform were beaten again, and this was a simple ballot.

This led to accusations of a "Rainbow Coalition" being formed to stifle the Reform's leadership of the Council, she later cited "Tactical Voting" as the cause, on multiple occasions. She also claimed to have spoken to all the leaders which had also been denied.

The opposition did not object to the nominations for the role of Leader and Deputy Leader of the Council, or their nominations for Cabinet positions, which included a Cabinet role for Alan Amos but not for Bill Hopkins.

Monk was nominated by David Taylor and seconded by Cllr Rob Wharton.

When the Cabinet roles were read out, she missed Cabinet Member for Environment and Communities, Ian Creswell.

The opposition parties also put forward a motion to increase the membership of Overview and Scrutiny Panels to include Vice-Chairs and to allow substitutes to attend committees. Reform refused to back the motion, with Cllr Monk accusing fellow elected members of having their "Snouts in the Trough", but it passed in favor of the motion.

David Taylor, speaking on the motion, suggested that although the Reform group had discussed the motion but that substitutes should not permitted as "if a person is committed to their party, and the council, they should put it [the meeting] in their diary" - words to live by.

He also commented that "The chair has said about working together. I can speak for at least 26 other people in the room, that we have not been consulted about these outside if the meeting" a point countered by Group Leaders from the other parties following the meeting.

As described below Monk made suggestions about the attendance of councillors - this despite Councillor Gaynor Jean-Louis being absent from the first meeting.

Later Reform criticized Cllr Boatright-Green for being caught on camera and a hot microphone saying ""It is what it is, and we will deal with that as we go along, and I can safely say if the whole thing crumbles Fu***Ng quickly it will be the best thing"

Throughout the meeting it is was noted how much David Taylor was directing Monk, including pointing to a "script" in front of them.

First Cabinet Meeting

The next test of Leadership for Monk was the Cabinet meeting on the 26th June. There was but one item on the agenda, that of reviewing, commenting and accepting the previous administration's finances. As the Cabinet Member with Responsibility for Finance and Efficiency was absent and unable to present the report, the meeting lasted just 20 minutes, during which Monk refused to answer 5 out of six questions posed to her. Two other cabinet members arrived late - with one, Dr Satinder Bell, arriving over 14 minutes into the meeting and as a result was not allowed to vote on the motion.

Monk had to be guided through the meeting by the Assistant Director for Legal and Governance.

Councillor Amos was also absent from the meeting .

During the meeting Liberal Democrat Group Leader Cllr Dan Boatright-Greene said: “I hope no-one’s ill today because obviously I assume you’ll be calling for them to resign.”

At the conclusion of the meeting one councillor said "That must be the shortest cabinet meeting in the history of Worcestershire County Council"

Monk and, ever present Deputy Taylor, hit back claiming that they were being unfairly treated, that a previous meeting in 2024 under the Conservatives had also only been 20 minutes. This information had been found by a local party member.

The used the meeting to criticize the previous administration for what they called "irresponsible spending". This was challenged by Conservative Group leader Adam Kent who asked whether that was in statutory areas such as "in adult social care, children’s social care or home to school transport, where the overspends are?" or in the other areas of council spending which were underbudget, Monk refused to answer.

It was pointed out that the finances of the previous administration had been supported by Monk (and Amos) whilst they were Conservatives in the previous administration.

DOGE in Worcestershire

Reform in Worcestershire has repeatedly made claims that the UK version of The Department Of Government Efficiency was coming to Worcestershire. DOGE has also been described as Department for Local Government Efficiency or DOLGE in an attempt to differentiate itself from the Government department Reform UK wants to create in Westminster.

Prior to DOGE actually arriving in Worcestershire, Reform Redditch - the mouthpiece of Taylor and Monk and therefore the Worcestershire Party, claimed that they had already saved the council £42,000 by "by using less cabinet members and David Taylor having a dual role. The Greedy Tories never did this...why is that?"

It was later proved that not only had the Tories done that very same thing in the last administration, but that Reform had actually miscounted their cabinet members (see above) and they were in fact not saving any money. They later withdrew their social media posts on the subject, admitting their mistake.

On the 19th June 2025 Reform UK's head of DOGE, Zia Yusuf, visited Worcestershire to officially launch the Worcestershire arm of DOGE. Yusuf pledges to cut wasteful spending using "cutting edge technology". They also claim that the team is working pro-bono.

On the 21st June, Richard Udall leader of the Labour Group (of two) at the County Council welcomed DOGE to Worcestershire but raised concerns "we need to ensure staff are protected from aggressive DOGE accountants, and we need to ensure confidential and sensitive material about individual service users is safe"

Controversies and criticism

• In the first meeting of the Full Council - Monk said that if councillors missed meetings due to illness they should resign Councillor monk had an attendance of just 60% whilst sitting as a Conservative in the previous administration.
• She also said, in the same meeting, that if you sat on more than one panel or committee, questions needed to be asked why. This despite the fact that she sat on 4 Committees during the previous administration.
• Reform Redditch - the branch that Monk represents posted on social media a list of all the opposition members of the council accusing them of taking 30 pieces of silver to betray the electorate.
• Joanne Monk claimed in the first full council meeting that over 47% of the electorate had voted for Reform in Worcestershire whereas it was only 31%.
• During Reform's first Cabinet meeting Monk refused to answer any questions, simply replying with variations of "we will get back to you" - this included being asked directly about the plans for their administration.
•