BOROUGH chiefs will spend more cash to meet rising social care demand in 2020-21 – with council tax rising to help meet the cost.

Cheshire West and Chester Council approved its budget for the year ahead at the meeting on Thursday, February 20, with the authority set to spend more than £320 million on running costs.

It includes a 3.99 per cent increase in council tax, including a two per cent rise allocated to adults’ social care, which is one of the council’s biggest cost pressures.

That means a Band D household will pay £1,580.73 for the year, in addition to precepts from their parish council, Cheshire’s police and crime commissioner and the fire authority.

CWaC’s Labour cabinet insisted the extra funds are needed – with the council set to make savings of £7.2 million in 2020-21, before needing to find up to another £19 million in 2021-22.

But the Conservative opposition called for the tax increase to be eased – and put forward an amendment to cut down the rate hike to 2.99 per cent, with the £1.8 million cost to be found by reducing some of the increase in funds available for social care and some contingency funding.

Cllr Andrew Dawson, Conservative, said: “What we are talking about is a £1.8 million reduction to send a signal to our hard-pressed council taxpayers that we won’t increase their council tax by the maximum at every opportunity.

“Unfortunately, it is something that this council has done every year since the current party that is in power took power all those years ago.

“I don’t believe for a moment that reducing the overall income of the council by £1.8 million will imperil any of the services described.”

Cllr Neil Sullivan put forward the Tory amendment and suggested it would help the council run ‘as tight a ship as possible’, suggesting the Labour administration is not providing value for money.

He also pointed out that CWaC’s revenue bill had increased by £50 million since 2016.

“I would beg to argue that is not austerity,” Cllr Sullivan said.

But Cllr Paul Roberts, Liberal Democrat, claimed he was ‘quite confused by the argument’ the Conservatives made that Labour ‘is wasting lots of money’ but that the council could also ‘spend a lot less than it was planning’.

He said: “It doesn’t make sense – they can have it one way or the other, but not both.”

And the idea of taking cash away from CWaC’s social care budget was roundly slammed by Labour councillors, with leader Cllr Louise Gittins warning of an ‘unprecedented growth’ of people needing social care.

She said: “The Countess [of Chester Hospital] was reporting an extra 800 people on top of this time last year, and of those people many were going out into adult social care with extremely complex needs.

“We can’t be taking money out of what we might need. One of our promises is to protect the most vulnerable and that is what we need to do.”

Her concerns were shared by Cllr Carol Gahan, cabinet member for legal and finance.

She also pointed out that the council has only had concrete financial plans from Government for the next 12 months – with CWaC facing a £16.5 million loss in funding if more cash is not confirmed for the local authority beyond 2021.

“Our situation couldn’t be more clear,” she said.

“We need this money. This amendment is fiscally irresponsible – and it is just the sort of thinking which led Northamptonshire Council to bankruptcy.

“If this council had increased council tax by the maximum available to us since 2012, it is estimated that we would have had an additional £15.7 million to spend on services this year.”

The Conservative amendment was refused, before CWaC’s budget was later approved with 40 votes for, 27 against and one abstention.