Cornwall Council leader Linda Taylor has said that she is “proud” of her administration’s budget plans which will see £55 million of cuts including 410 jobs.

The Conservative leader of the council proposed the draft budget and business plan today to allow them to be subject to scrutiny by councillors and for the public to give their views.

Under the budget proposals, the council would increase its share of council tax bills by 2.99%, which includes a general increase of 1.99% along with a 1% increase to fund adult social care. This would be the maximum the council can increase its share of council tax without having a referendum.

The council is also looking to invest an extra £45m in adult social care – the council’s biggest area of expenditure – to help meet increasing demand.

However the council is also having to make a number of savings which include 410 jobs being removed – the council says that 200 of those will be through not filling vacant posts while the others will have to come through voluntary and compulsory redundancies.

Cllr Taylor said that she was “proud” of the work which had been done to draw up the budget in a way which she says “deals with the challenges and meets the priorities of residents”.

She said that the budget would help the council meet its targets to become carbon neutral and help people in Cornwall to “start well, live well and age well”.

Cllr Taylor added: “This will give further emphasis to the work that we are doing to become carbon neutral and tackle inequalities in our society.”

Deputy leader David Harris made some frank comments about the budget, which he said had been “very difficult to set”, and the need for more support from central Government.

He said: “We, as an administration, inherited a very difficult position in May. The existing medium term financial plan approved by council in February this year had huge problems and that is before pressures from COVID, adult social care, homelessness and housing.

“The plans in this budget protect Cornwall’s frontline services.”

Cllr Harris said that the budget planning had been done to try and ensure that core services provided by the council can continue to operate.

But he added: “Very regrettably some reductions in services will have to be made and, even more regrettably in my view, a reduction in staff numbers, it has to happen.

“Let’s be clear, the medium term financial plan, going forward, still has huge holes in it and there are issues that need to be addressed, in particular fairer funding from Westminster and we have asked our MPs to push on this.

“On adult social care, the demand in terms of the money from this council for adult social care cannot continue to increase the way it has, we must find better ways of working on a combined basis with the NHS. We must, hopefully, get more direct money from Westminster to contribute towards the cost.”

Cllr Harris said that the council was also continuing to lobby the Government to allow it to charge second home owners additional council tax which he said would “raise significant revenue” for the council to provide services.

Public consultation is now set to be launched on the draft budget proposals and business plan.

The documents will also go to each overview and scrutiny committee at the council for consideration in January before then going back to the Cabinet to make a final recommendation to full council in February.