Householders could be asked to stump up £500 extra in council tax a year, unless the government finds even more money for social care.
Councils need 25% extra funding to keep services at their current levels due to the rising cost of caring for an elderly population, according to The Local Government Association (LGA).
An extra £8 billion is needed by 2024/25, with the cost of child protection, homelessness prevention, waste and recycling, and road maintenance also going up.
Rishi Sunak is under pressure to find more money for councils in his autumn spending review – or else they will be forced to ask ratepayer for more.
The average bill would need to increase by a quarter to find the money needed, adding £474 to a Band D property every year for the next three years.
In April, councils were permitted to raise taxes by up to 5% – with 3% going to social care – or they had to hold a local referendum.
The average bill nationwide rose by 4.4% but 13 local authorities decided on a 6% rise.
Any further hikes are likely to prove unpopular across the country, as people face more and more demands on their wage packets.
Brits are already going to have to pay more in National Insurance from next year – forcing someone who earns £50,000-a-year to pay £500 more in tax.
The LGA said none of the estimated £36 billion set to be raised by the new UK-wide Health and Social Care levy has been earmarked for frontline social care.
Energy bills are also likely to increase by £139 when the price cap is lifted to reflect the increasing cost of gas.
Petrol is going up by up to 10p a litre – adding around £83-a-year to the cost of running a car.
Meanwhile, the £20 uplift in Universal Credit is coming to an end and rising inflation rates are driving up the cost of goods.
The LGA wants a £1billion Community Investment Fund created that allows councils to apply for money to invest in ‘supporting individuals, strengthening communities, and tackling priorities in their local areas.’
LGA chairman James Jamieson said: ‘Councils continue to face severe funding and demand pressures that will stretch the local services our communities rely on to the limit. Securing the long-term sustainability of local services must therefore be the top priority in the spending review.
‘If we are to come out of this pandemic with a society that is truly levelled up, the vital services that councils provide must be at the heart of it.
‘Councils need certainty over their medium-term finances, adequate funding to tackle day-to-day pressures and long-term investment in people and transforming places across all parts of the country to turn levelling up from a political slogan to a reality that leads to real change for people’s lives.
‘Levelling up has to also mean a radical reset of the relationship between central and local – building back better means building back local.’
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