SUSSEX’S three leading councils will have to cut more than £58 million between them next year to cope with continuing reductions in funding and increased pressures on its services.

Hundreds of council jobs are set to go across the county as councillors and council officers are forced to find more and more painful cuts.

Several million more pounds will go from Sussex’s 13 district and borough councils.

Opposition councillors warned that authorities were on the brink of running out of money with services already beyond “breaking point” leaving vulnerable residents to fend for themselves.

Senior councillors have warned the current funding for adult social care was no longer “sustainable” or “fit-for-purpose”

East Sussex County Council is the latest authority in the county to unveil their demanding budget targets this week proposing to cut £17 million from its 2017/18 budget.

This is a drop to previous estimates of £24 million thanks in part to better than expected government funding but the cuts will still lead to up to 200 council jobs going over the next two years.

East Sussex residents will be asked to share the burden of increasing pressures on adult social care with a 4.99 per cent council tax rise - the equivalent of more than £61 a year for band D homes.

Council officers said they were mindful of residents being able to afford the rise in a county where earnings are lower than the national average but warned of the risk that NHS partners may withdraw from partnerships if the council was not seen to be investing “as much as possible” into adult services.

Councillor David Elkin, lead member for finance, said the budget process had become more “difficult and challenging” after £100 million was lost over the past five years.

He said: “As funding decreases, the services and the help we have to give our residents increases, the additional pressures are really dramatic in East Sussex because we have one of the highest number of 85-year-olds and 65-year-olds anywhere in the country.

“It is as tough a job as anywhere else in the country.”

West Sussex County Council also revealed this month it will have to make almost £17 million of cuts in 2017/18 compared to the £40 million initially feared.

The authority has declined the Government’s offer of an increased council tax rise of up to 4.95 per cent, instead proposing a 3.95 per cent.

In December, Brighton and Hove City Council revealed it faced cutting £24 million in its “most difficult year ever” with 140 jobs set to go.

PRETTY DIRE BUT IT COULD HAVE BEEN MUCH WORSE

Not as bad as first feared but still pretty dire is about as rosy as council budgets get these days.

The assessment, by Liberal Democrat group leader for East Sussex, councillor David Tutt, comes in response to the news the council will cut £17 million from its budget in 2017/18 on top of the £100 million it saved over the past five years.

It could have been far worse – just months earlier cuts were predicted to be £24 million which would have meant more services axed, more jobs on the line and more residents going without.

Cllr Tutt said: “Councils have already gone through massive cuts and there is nothing left to cut without pain being felt by staff who work for us and the residents we look after.

“If the government cut anything like local government there would be no need for further austerity.

“I think we are past breaking point. We are already seeing people failing to get services that desperately need them.

“Very soon it will get to a point where a council just runs out of money.”

Councillors from all sides of the political spectrum agree: it can’t go on like this.

Conservative David Elkin, lead member for finance, said: “I don’t think the current level of funding is sustainable.

“For East Sussex County Council in particular, it is not fit-for-purpose funding. It needs to be done on a needs basis and it needs to be done from central taxation.”

The worrying thing for all authorities is there is little light at the end of the tunnel, not even from reform allowing them to retain all of their business rates.

Cllr Elkin said: “It is early days but with the current figures we would be a net loser. At the moment we get a top-up of £56 million, so we would be a substantial loser.

“I don’t see being reliant on business rates as utopia for us – far from it.

“I don’t think it’s right that public health should be paid for by businesses, I don’t see how that works.”

Cllr Elkin admitted to getting frustrated at times with his party colleagues in Westminster for the current inadequate levels of funding but conceded the government was right to ensure the country balanced its books.

He said sustained lobbying from all parties was getting the message across that substantial change was needed.

In the meantime, while the country waits for that change opposition councillors are in no doubt who will be most affected.

Labour councillor Trevor Webb said: “If you look at the first items of budget cuts, they are looking at reducing support for people with substance abuse issues, the homeless, cuts to the welfare information service and support for people with learning disabilities.

“This is now two years of budget cuts to the most vulnerable.”

Council staff are also suffering under the funding shortfall with 200 jobs to go at the council over the next two years. Cllr Elkin conceded that remaining staff could be put under increasing pressure.

He said: “Nothing is ever the same. We will deliver services in a different way, using different methods, work with partners and find better ways of doing things.”

Opposition parties have vowed to stop any more job cuts.

Cllr Webb said: “We have real concerns about more cuts to staff.we will be looking not to reduce any more staff. If you remove staff, you are losing your experience and your knowledge.”

SOCIAL CARE IN FIRING LINE

OVER in West Sussex there is almost relief the council will only have to find cuts just shy of £17 million in 2017/18.

Months earlier that figure was a mammoth £40 million but the authority has dipped into its reserves to pay off £16 million while also agreeing to use £8 million put aside to pay off its loans.

Not that it will mean more services will have an easy ride next year.

Dr James Walsh, Liberal Democrat leader on the council, said the latest round of savings come after four years of “pretty swingeing cuts”.

He said: “It has had a cumulative effect on social care for the elderly.

“This means a lot of people are not getting help in their homes who were getting help three or four years ago which is leading to delays in discharging from hospital and bed blocking.

“Each year it is more of the same, it’s not just this year’s cuts but the last four years and the years up to 2020.”

For 2018/19 the council is looking at a £13 million black hole on top of £10 million of savings already identified.

It is in the face of those funding difficulties that the council has come under fire for not taking up additional revenue-raising powers.

One of the Government’s few concessions to assist with social care was bringing forward the adult social care precept allowing the raising of council tax by almost 5 per cent.

West Sussex County Council looks set to decline that offer, raising bills by 3.95 per cent.

Cllr Walsh accused the authority of trying to put its reputation as a low-tax authority – it had frozen council tax bills for six years in a row before 2016/17 – ahead of its residents.

Caroline Fife, Unison South East regional organiser, agreed: “It would be a bad thing for vulnerable people in West Sussex if the full precept was turned down.

“The council has made this mistake before, freezing council tax in five of the last six years, and this is at least partially responsible for some of the difficulties we now face.”