A massive 65 per cent of the council tax Cheshire East collects is spent on about 10,000 very vulnerable people.

Cllr Kath Flavell (Sandbach, Lab) said because council tax payers, instead of central government, had to foot the bill for adult social care and children's social care, savings had to be made in other areas which affected all residents.

She slammed the 'double taxation' which, combined with soaring inflation and a greater demand for adult social care, has resulted in forced cuts to other services.

"We, as councillors, do not want to make these cuts to services, and it's very painful for us and we know how that's going to be received by a lot of people," Cllr Flavell said at Thursday's meeting of the council's corporate policy committee.

She said the public probably didn't realise that 65 per cent of Cheshire East council tax revenue goes on social care for adults and children.

"But when you actually add up, there are fewer than 3,000 children who are open to social care and there are around 7,000 adults who are open to social care, that represents 10,000 people out of 400,000, so we're talking about that tiny percentage of people getting that money," said Cllr Flavell.

"Now I'm a socialist, so I'm happy about people who can pay helping those who can't, but that is not value for money for our residents.

"We're talking about the large majority of them are not getting all of their council tax spent on services that they are receiving and that, to me, has got to be sorted out."

She added: "It's a double taxation. People pay their taxes and their national insurance thinking that that's where their social care comes from, but then they pay again for that social care for people in their county and it's absolutely wrong, fundamentally wrong."

The Sandbach councillor's comments came as the committee was discussing the proposed budget.

Council tax is set to rise by 4.99 per cent, there are plans to introduce parking charging charges in towns which are currently free, while towns which have paid for years could see their charges hiked up too.  Other proposals include an annual charge for garden waste collection and streetlights being switched off.

Council leader Sam Corcoran (Lab) told the committee the budget had been made extremely difficult by the 'chaos' of last summer.

He said, on top of the financial turmoil, there was also the political chaos to deal with.

"Three prime ministers, one lasting only 49 days. We have inflation changing, interest rates changing,  government policy changing exceptionally fast – and the interim government settlement was only announced on December 19."

He added: "It is remarkable and a great credit to officers that, despite all that chaos, we have a four-year fully balanced budget before us."

A final decision will be made on the budget at full council on Wednesdsay February 22.

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