Council tax to rise by maximum amount in Suffolk

Adult social care will take up nearly half of Suffolk County Council's £800m budget

A council is set to raise its share of council tax by the maximum amount of 4.99%.

Suffolk County Council put forward the proposal in a report that will be presented to the council's scrutiny committee next week.

This means for a band B property, which are the most common in Suffolk, there will be an annual increase in council tax of £60.97 to £1,282.89 from 1 April.

Richard Smith, the council's cabinet member for finance, said: "Despite the financial challenges posed by increasing demand and broader economic pressures, we are proposing a balanced budget without drawing on reserves."

Reserves will not be used to balance the books in the next financial year according to Richard Smith, the cabinet member for finance at Suffolk County Council

The Labour government announced the local government settlement in December.

Jim McMahon, Minister for Local Government, said they wanted to put councils on "firmer financial footing" and were "making available £69bn, which represented a 3.5% real terms increase in council spending power".

Despite this, the report on Suffolk's finances has outlined the need to make additional savings of £10.9m, to add to the £17.5m already planned. This brings the total savings to £28.4m for the 2025-26 financial year.

Smith said: "It is deeply disappointing that, despite our significant deprivation levels, Suffolk will receive nothing from the government's new £600 million recovery grant."

Successive governments have not been able to "fix" social care model, said Andrew Stringer, leader of the opposition at Suffolk County Council

Council tax is split in two parts:

• the basic rate which can be increased annually by 2.99%

• a further 2% rise which is ring-fenced for adult social care

Councils can choose how much they want to put each one up by to a maximum of 5%.

Andrew Stringer, leader of the Green, Liberal Democrat and Independents Group at Suffolk County Council, said: "This is absolutely no surprise that the county is having to increase council tax to the maximum as we have a broken social care model which no government has been able to fix and education funding nowhere near matches the costs involved."

The budget proposals will be presented to the scrutiny meeting on 14 January and then the final budget will be debated and voted on at a full council meeting on 13 February.