A FOUR per cent council tax rise could be on the cards to cover the cost of social care in Essex.

Essex County Council confirmed it was considering its options after the Government’s autumn spending review announcement on Tuesday.

A band D property currently pays £1,086.75 for the county council section of its tax bill and a four per cent rise would add an extra £43.47. Coupled with a £5 a year rise to pay for more police, this would mean council tax would increase by £48.47.

Council funding from central Government is expected to fall by 6.7 per cent as a result of the measures announced by Chancellor George Osborne.

But Mr Osborne has given authorities the option of upping council tax by an extra two per cent if the money is spent on adult social care.

He said: “The health service cannot function effectively without good social care.

“The truth we need to confront is this: many local authorities are not going to be able to meet growing social care needs unless they have new sources of funding.

“That, in the end, comes from the taxpayer.”

The county council has frozen council tax for five years in a row, but leader David Finch confirmed a two per cent rise was already being considered before Mr Osborne’s announcement.

Mr Finch said: “The emerging picture is that local government has been hit very hard – so much so the Chancellor did not even mention the reduction to our budgets in his speech.”

“The very significant reduction in our grant funding will place considerable extra pressures on services across the board.

“We were already considering a council tax increase of two per cent.

“Enabling us to increase council tax by a further two per cent to pay for social care funding puts the onus on the taxpayer to bridge the funding gap – there is no new money in this, just new taxes.

“In Essex, two per cent would only provide half of the money we need to pay for the national living wage. We would need to consider the impact on taxpayers very carefully.”

Southend council leader Ron Woodley said no decision had been made on whether to increase council tax in the borough. As a unitary authority, Southend has responsibility for social care.

He added: “We are still working on next year’s budget proposals. We will have to look to see where we are. We always need to know what the devil is in the detail with the aspects of the spending review.

“We have heard about the positives, but we have not seen the negatives yet and until we get that information over the next couple of weeks and reassess our budget then we will make our minds up then.”