Kingston Council Leader, Liz Green, has said she is “frustrated” that the council has had to hike up council tax by four per cent this year, and blames the government for not providing councils with enough money.

Speaking to the Local Democracy Reporting Service, Cllr Green said: “It is an ultimate frustration of mine that we have to keep going back to the council tax payer and ask for more, but until government properly funds local government through central methods, I don’t see any other way of looking after the vulnerable.”

She added: “It is a balance between having the ability to properly look after those people and maintain the services that everybody uses and knows councils do”

Residents in Kingston will again see their council tax raised by the maximum amount, going up four per cent from April.

Cllr Green said this was because the council no longer receives additional funding from central government, compared to £66m in 2010, all while spending on social care and children with special needs continues to increase.

According to the council, 60 per cent of the budget is spent on supporting the borough’s most vulnerable residents, with 40 per cent going to adult social care, and 23 per cent to children’s services.

Cllr Green said there “simply isn’t enough money” coming from the Dedicated Schools Grant for children with high needs, which is a separate budget.

“The government is supposed to pay for those children, to make sure they have the start in life and the progression that they need. They do not simply provide enough money for us to be able to do that,” she said.

“We have been having a rising deficit for a number of years, we are not alone in that, lots of top-tier authorities are facing the same struggles. But because that sits on our balance sheet the accounting principles means that we need to have reserves to cover it. That’s the biggest frustration. It’s not really properly in our control, but we pay the price for it,” she said.

She added that the additional tax hike to pay for adult social care is also “just making local people pay for adult social care more.”

“Demographically we are just getting more and more people living longer, which is great, but it’s such a rise in demand it’s really hard to maintain that and we have to because these are the most vulnerable people that need our help to be able to live the life they deserve.

“We are a community in Kingston, and quite rightly we look after our most vulnerable in the community because they need the most help. But because of finances and ten years of austerity, which in my opinion has now gone just too far, it means that some services everyone uses have to give way to those most vulnerable people we have to look after.”

However, Kingston’s Conservative opposition group has criticised the repeated increases in council tax, and claims that they hit the poorest hardest.

The borough has had the highest council tax in London for a number of years.

This is because Kingston is seen as an area of low need, especially compared to some of its neighbours in London which receive more funding.

Cllr Ian George, Opposition spokesperson for engagement and continuous learning, said: “Speaking to people on the doorstep, if you’re on a fixed income, if you’re elderly or not earning anymore, then this constant increase really does hit you hard.”

He added: “A lot of people don’t really get anything from their money apart from bins emptied and pot holes filled in.

“That’s really bad at the moment, and frankly that’s bog standard for what you expect from your council tax. There just doesn’t seem to be any long term vision or thought as to how they are going to manage. They seem to start everything by saying they will put it up to the maximum and take it from there.

“There appears to be no end in sight.”

Kingston will raise council tax by 1.99 per cent, with an additional two per cent to be spent exclusively on adult social care from April.

This will amount to a rise of just under £1.20 per week for residents of Band D properties.

Last year the government gave all local authorities the power to raise council tax by up to two per cent, while local authorities with adult social care responsibilities will be able to raise rates by up to four per cent.

If councils want to push through a greater increase, they have to hold a referendum.

While the maximum increase is lower than last year’s, when local authorities with adult social care responsibilities were able to raise council tax by up to five per, this is still well above inflation, which stood at 1.5 per cent in November 2019.

The draft budget will be going to all the strategic committees before it is presented at Full Council on 27 February 2020.