Taxpayers will face the highest increase possible without a referendum following Sutton Council’s approval of the 3.99 per cent rise on Monday night.

The hike is comprised of two per cent adult social care “precept”, announced by Chancellor George Osborne in his autumn statement in a bid to mitigate growing pressure on services, on top of a further 1.99 per cent overall increase. 

RELATED: Sutton Council to hike council tax by nearly four per cent

Cllr Simon Wales, Sutton Council’s lead member for finance and assets, said: “We have to make some hard decisions because of the unprecedented government cuts to our funding combined with increased pressure on services for vulnerable people.

“Between 2010 and 2019, we have to save £74 million from our annual budget. That is an incredible saving to make and local authorities up and down the country are faced with making very difficult choices to close services and reduce their size.

“We are doing our very best to keep services open by restructuring the council to reduce staff numbers including senior management, share services with other councils and look at innovative ways to save money such as basing health workers in our children’s centres.

“So far We have saved £43 million from our annual budget. We now have £31 million more to save. The council tax rise will help to cover some of the shortfall in care for the elderly and other areas, but there is no question that we still have a long way to go in making these radical savings.”

But the tax rise was criticised by opposition leader Cllr Tim Crowley, who called on the council to use Sutton’s £1.3 million “transitional funding” – announced by central government last month in a bid to ease the pain of council funding cuts – to reduce the burden on taxpayers.

He said: If they [the council] hadn’t overspent last year, then maybe they would be in a position to bring council tax down rather than increase it.

“But even still, other councils are using the transitional fund as a way of stopping council tax going up. They aren’t using the fund to keep services like the youth and mobile library service open either.

“Instead the money is being reserved for their voting cohort when the next election comes around.”

The full council agreed to set council tax for 2016/17 at £1,210.03 for a Band D property, with an increase of £23.27 for the adult social care “precept”.

The net increase in household council tax bills in Sutton will be 1.89 per cent because the Greater London Authority is reducing its share following the end of the city-wide charge to pay for the 2012 Olympics.