County councillors are due to vote today on plans to increase council tax bills by just under 4% as the authority sets a budget for 2017-18 requiring savings of £108 million.

The meeting comes as a political row was triggered over claims that Surrey County Council had struck a deal with the government behind closed doors about a threat to hike bills by 15% and trigger a referendum.

KCC’s own spending plans come against a familiar backdrop of cuts in government grants leaving it less money for critically important services, notably in care for the elderly and vulnerable.

Council chiefs say they will use the option of increasing bills by an additional 2% for the second year running to raise more money for social care - on top of a 1.99% hike for other services.

If approved, the bill for households in Band C properties would rise by nearly £40 from £1,007.60 to £1,047.84.

For Band D homes, the bill will increase by £45 to £1,178.

Ahead of today’s meeting, the Conservative leader Paul Carter insisted that despite severe cuts in finances, services would remain largely intact.

That will be disputed by opposition parties.

But he was pessimistic about the outlook for future years, saying the trend for increasing demand for social care would continue.

“Are we approaching a crisis in social care funding?

“I think the government readily accepts that we are...and it will come round and bite us unless local government and central government find new ways of funding care.”

Cllr Carter said the savings next year were unlikely to be on the same scale as this year but would still be in the region of £45m.

“We have tried to keep council tax down in the last four or five years; the Treasury has said we have no money at this time to put into adult social care,” he added.

“The only way to do that is to add a 2% precept and we have had to do that.

One pressure is the introduction of the National Living Wage, which KCC says will create problems for contractors by pushing up wage bills that would then be passed on to the authority.

The draft budget will mean between 300 and 400 more jobs will be lost but of those, about 50 would be compulsory redundancies.

The budget will see the council take £11m from its reserves to cushion the impact but the Conservative administration says that is unrelated to the forthcoming election.

Follow today’s budget debate with our political editor Paul Francis on Twitter @PaulOnPolitics