Kent’s biggest and most beleaguered local authority agreed a balanced budget this afternoon – but its leadership issued dire warnings about the future.

Kent County Council (KCC) members voted it through by 41 votes to 10 with seven abstentions.

The 2025-26 budget was approved against a backdrop of local government reform which will see the dismantling of KCC and the other 13 authorities in the county in the coming years to make way for a much smaller number of larger unitary councils.

The cost of social care and special educational needs continue to put KCC under severe pressure, councillors were told.

KCC has had to find millions of pounds in in-house savings, will set a council tax rise of almost 5% - the highest it is legally allowed to charge - and has dipped into reserves again to balance the books.

The executive has warned that despite some increases in the funding to Kent from central government, they do not meet the cost of providing services.

Conservative leader Roger Gough warned members “there is no cavalry coming over the hill - there is only the hill”.

Cllr Gough told members of all parties: “This is the right budget for the tight times in which we have to operate.

“The bleakest picture of all remains in adult social care. This government could say with some justification that successive administrations of whatever party have failed and fudged this issue.

“Nonetheless, in these last seven months we have seen a lethal cocktail of policies that have made this so very much worse. Cost increases, in particular in terms of employer’s national insurance, as well as increases in the national living wage, we have taken together, giving an 11% increase in providers’ costs and presenting a real risk to the stability of that sector.”

Cllr Gough said upcoming local government reforms will not guarantee favourable funding formulas for councils like KCC.

He added: “It is going to remain extremely tough and if anyone believes that local government reorganisation is a panacea for that, particularly in a county as big and complex as Kent, they really have not been paying attention.

“There is no cavalry coming over the hill - there is only the hill. So we have a budget for that stretching environment - setting us up for a number of years. It reluctantly but realistically increases council tax, continues transformation savings in key areas, which is what this budget does.”

Papers before KCC said: “It is acknowledged that setting a balanced budget for 2025-26 has been challenging, due to the ongoing and escalating cost pressures the council faces, alongside insufficient funding in the local government finance settlement.

“Together, these mean that the council can only set a balanced budget with further and significant savings.

“The combination of draw downs and transfers at the end of 2023-24 and the use of reserves to balance the 2024-25 budget, have reduced the level of reserves, which now pose a more significant risk to the council’s medium to long term sustainability than levels of capital debt.”

However, KCC has managed to set a budget which replenishes reserves by £11m.

According to the papers, KCC needs a net revenue budget requirement of £1.5bn, about two thirds of which comes from council tax receipts.

Labour opposition group leader Alister Brady repeated the words “Tory waste” over and over as he rounded on the previous Conservative government.

Referring to the May elections, Cllr Brady said that time is running out for the current Tory administration.

He said Kent residents are “unhealthier, unsupported because of reduced services”.

“This is your legacy,” he added. “Decades of Tory waste. Unfortunately, some savings are inevitable because of your policy failures - we are forced to make these. But year on year, you make these cuts without mitigations.

“People are not ‘demand pressures’ or ‘challenges’, they are people who need our help. The previous (Conservative) government made no interventions, the previous government’s cruel austerity priorities led to society being worse off, Kent residents being worse off.”

Liberal Democrat group leader Antony Hook said band D property owners will end up paying more than £80 a year more because of the hike in council tax.

He added: “That comes in the context of an ongoing cost-of-living crisis…so families are finding their wages going less far to meet their basic needs.”

The council tax accounts for more than £900m but people are not seeing improvements in areas such as schools, highways and social care, said Cllr Hook.

He added: “Against that in the council tax there is a shrinking of spending, a total of £72m of cuts to spending.”

Cllr Hook noted that £12m had been drawn from reserves and more than £30m would be needed in the coming years.

Council deputy leader Peter Oakford told a recent cabinet meeting that KCC is very close to being a provider of solely statutory services.

All discretionary amenities which are valued by tax-payers are under threat.

Cllr Oakford said the budget sees a £150 million growth in spending requirements this year, with £80 million of that for adult social care provision.

He said: “If you look at the total budgets by directorate, there is incremental spend in adults’ and children’s services.

“Everywhere else throughout the council the budgets have reduced slightly. It demonstrates the whole council approach that we're having to under-fund some areas of the council to move money into social care.

“We were all very excited when we heard some of the large numbers that were being bandied around by government and that councils were going to get ‘a lot more money’. And we got more money and we're very, very grateful for the incremental funds that we have received.

“But the net growth in funding from government…represents £30 million pounds. And our spending growth is £150 million.

“I am a broken record on this, but until government recognises that the spending growth in adult social care is outstripping the funds available, and they recognise that across the country, we will continue to be where we are.”

An alternative budget proposed by the Labour opposition was defeated heavily.