Surrey County Council has been given one of the lowest increases in county council funding in England for the next financial year.

The government’s latest finance settlement confirmed Surrey will receive £1.8 million more than in 2009/10, a 1.5 per cent increase.

It is likely to mean a rise in council tax of about 2.5 per cent for the county council element.

Dr Andrew Povey, Leader of Surrey County Council, said: “The people of Surrey expect to have a reasonable level of public services for a prosperous, modern society. The county council has ambitious aspirations on their behalf and the government has failed to support them – a 1.5 per cent rise falls way short of the 4 per cent for other counties.

“The people of Surrey make a net contribution of £5.5 billion annually to the Government, or £5,100 for every man, woman and child in the county. That is far more than many other parts of the country contribute. This settlement reinforces how unfairly the people of Surrey are treated by the government.

“Money is tight for everyone and nobody likes paying more but with council tax funding more than 80 per cent of our services a small rise in council tax – a maximum of 2.5 per cent – is now inevitable for 2010/11.”

While the average rise for county councils was four per cent, West Sussex, Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Hampshire and Hertfordshire, along with Surrey was kept to a 1.5 per cent rise.

The total amount the county council will receive in government funding in 2010/11 is £127.5 million. The figure for 2009/10 was £125.7.

Local government minister Barbara Follett announced that local authorities will receive a total of £76.3bn in the final year of a three-year settlement.

Epsom and Ewell Borough Council has already threatened that council services will have to be trimmed to keep the council tax rise to a reasonable level after a government settlement that gives it an increase of just £20,000 .

Surrey Police had this year’s precept capped by Government after it was forced to raise its charges to cope with the financial crisis brought on by several years of low government funding.

The government decision to cap Surrey police meant that every district had to send out council tax bills for a second time. It cost the police £1.2m to make savings of £1.6m.

• What do you think? Let us know by email here, phone the newsdesk on 020 8330 9555 or leave a comment below.