SEVEN million pounds will be cut from adult social care services in East Sussex next year despite a new 4.99 per cent increase in council tax being agreed.

The Conservative-controlled East Sussex County Council (ESCC) agreed a package of £17m savings fromits budget.

Labour councillor Geoffrey Daniel warned: “When people vote on May 4, high council taxes and massive cuts in local government services is what they’ll be looking at.”

But Liberal Democrat David Tutt, whose proposed amendment to the motion was defeated, acknowledged that his party would also have made cuts while increasing taxes.

Cllr David Elkin, Conservative deputy leader of the council, told yesterday’s full council meeting that after consultations with 70 groups, the cabinet was able to propose a £365million budget which was “transparent, deliverable and sustainable” as well as balanced for both revenue and capital.

Following new rules announced by then Chancellor George Osborne in the Autumn statement 2015, councils have the authority to raise an additional ring-fenced levy for adult social care alongside normal council tax increases.

This levy was permitted to be two per cent for three years, or three per cent for two years and ESCC have chosen to front-load the increase alongside a 1.99 per cent increase in council tax.

That means £62.47 more for a Band D home, but residents also face a £5 increase in the police precept, as determined by Katy Bourne the police and crime commissioner.

The biggest cuts fall in the areas of greatest spending, with adult social care services asked to make £7m saving against existing expenditure in the financial year beginning April 1, and a further £10m in the following year.

The cabinet has taken the unusual strep of planning two years’ worth of budgets, and while they have made £17m of cuts in year 2016/2017 they have found a further £21m in the following year, including greater cuts to services for disabled children. No administration can bind its successor, but next year’s meeting, if a different party was voted in at the local elections, would have to unpick planned cuts and find the same savings elsewhere if they wanted to change these decisions.

Union officials told The Argus that the full effect of these cuts, and job losses of between 200 and 250 would start to bite from September 2017 - four months after the forthcoming council elections.

Lynda Walker of Unison East Sussex said: “This budget affects real people’s lives and livelihoods and as a union we are concerned about the loss of jobs to our members and continuous massive cuts to public services.”