Let's Talk - budget

The council provides more than 600 services from adult and children's social care, to waste and recycling collections, libraries and parks.

This year's budget was £764m. But because of the cost of living crisis, increasing demand for services, especially in social care, and uncertainty over Government funding arrangements, there is a funding gap of £30m for next year.

The council is planning to use £9m of reserves to help plug the gap, reducing it to £21m and looking at other cost saving measures and efficiencies.

Cabinet Secretary Councillor Paul Stewart said: "Demand and costs continue to increase for both children's and adult social care and we face further needs in areas where we already spend the most.

"Upcoming social care funding reforms provide more challenges in how we fund these changes in coming years and we cannot meet the savings required without making some difficult decisions. In some cases, proposals we are considering this year will include changes to how we deliver some of our services."

In the Autumn Statement, the Government said councils could increase council tax by 5 per cent (including 2 per cent for social care) in the absence of sufficient funding from the Government. Last year the council tax in Sunderland raised 15 per cent (£115m) of the council's allocated income with the majority of funding coming from Government grants.

Sunderland's budget proposals are on the basis of a 2.99 per cent council tax rise.

This would mean a Band A property, which are the majority of Sunderland households (approx. 60.35%) paying 61p more per week and Band D properties paying 91p more per week. This would still mean Sunderland having the North East's lowest council tax rates.

If the tax was increased by this 2.99 per cent in line with the council's current proposals it would raise £3.5m and if increased in line with the new Government rules it would raise an additional £2.34m.

Cllr Stewart added: "As a council we continue to aspire and work for a more dynamic, healthy and vibrant smart city. The next budget proposals already outline £41m of investments in our infrastructure and a further £700m of investment is planned over the next five years."