Surrey announces council tax proposal

Surrey County Council has announced its proposed council tax recommendation for next year.

The Cabinet will meet to make a formal recommendation on Tuesday 3 February. A final decision will be taken at a meeting of Surrey’s Full Council on Tuesday 10 February.

Leader David Hodge said: “With unprecedented demand for services we are proposing a 1.99% increase, which is the bare minimum we need given that our government grant has gone down £24 million this year. Anything more would mean wasting as much as £2m on a referendum.

“It should be remembered that we’ve saved £260m in the last four years – equivalent to around a quarter of our budget – despite the huge increase in demand for school places and adult social care, with the latter set to soak up all those savings by next year.”

• Growing demand for social care support will cost £18m extra next year alone to meet the needs of around 700 more vulnerable adults
• New care responsibilities will cost up to £150m without increased funding
• Surrey needs 13,000 additional school places in the next five years
• The council has saved £260m in the last four years and plans to save around £330m more by 2019
• Government grant has gone down £24m this year.

Further information can be found in a council report.