Council tax to go up with more cuts to services

The tax people pay towards Norfolk County Council will increase - with people living in Band D properties paying an extra £83.52 a year

A council has confirmed plans that will see cuts to services and an increase in the cost of council tax.

Norfolk County Council's Conservative Leader Kay Mason Billig said the authority was having to "do more with less" and called for more funding from the government.

Councillors voted through savings in areas like social care, homelessness and street lighting, along with a tax rise of 4.99% to plug a £44.72m budget gap.

The main opposition group leader, Liberal Democrat Brian Watkins, said the Tories had managed finances poorly and warned the authority was facing a "crisis".

The council has said its costs have grown substantially, with growing demand for adult social care and special educational needs and disabilities (Send) support.

It will also further face further pressures from the increase in national insurance payments, whilst the government has ended its £5.4m Rural Services Grant.

With a large Conservative majority, a budget which will see £45m of cuts – including a £2m reduction in support for homelessness – was passed.

Savings of £23m will also be made in adult and children's social care services and streetlights will be turned off in 132 locations.

Meanwhile, the amount people pay for council tax will increase – for example, people living in a Band D property will see their bill rise by £83.52 a year.

Conservative Kay Mason Billig said councils needed a "fair share" of funding from the government

Mason Billig warned that "it gets harder in the face of the government's squeeze on local authorities" and called for a "fair share" of funding from the government.

She said: "Every year we have do more with less. The man in the street would say that's an impossible task and he is partially correct.

"It is nigh-on near impossible, but we do it year in, year out."

Watkins said her complaints were "somewhat ironic" when it was "a Conservative government that presided over 14 years of cuts to local services".

He also accused the council's Tory administration of failing to properly address "the financial crisis engulfing the authority", with the gap in the authority's budget expected to reach £120m over the next three years.

"The uncomfortable truth is that we seem to be losing more and more control of our financial direction of travel," he added.

Labour's Steve Morphew insisted the government was making "tough decisions"

Defending his party, the Labour group leader Steve Morphew said the current government was dealing with the effects of austerity and was making "tough decisions that will be unpopular".

"But at least we've got a government that's trying to get a grip," he added.

The Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government said it was "absolutely committed to tackling the issues that matter to rural communities".

A spokesperson added that it had confirmed "up to £69 billion in funding (to councils) in England through the Local Government Finance Settlement" with Norfolk County Council getting an "an increase of up to £56.2million".