FARNHAM residents were warned they could face an 18 per cent hike in council tax next year, after Surrey County Council admitted it “simply can’t cope” with the scale of funding cuts.

In a potential political tipping point, the Tory-led administration condemned the failure of Chancellor and Surrey MP Philip Hammond to provide any additional cash for social care in his first Autumn Statement.

The Local Government Association (LGA) is calling for an injection of £2.6 billion to get the adult care system in England through to 2020 – half to meet immediate pressures and stabilise the sector, half to meet rising demand, inflation and the costs of the “national living wage”.

Crossing the political divide, Surrey leader David Hodge, who heads the LGA’s Conservative Group, penned a joint letter calling for urgent action with the LGA leaders of the other three political groups.

“The social care crisis is real and it is happening right now,” the LGA leaders wrote. “The Government cannot ignore it any longer if we are to truly have a society that works for everyone.”

Mr Hodge delivered a further veiled attack on Government when he told Surrey’s decision-making cabinet: “We have always been true to the Conservative Government and our residents and we have made our financial position very clear to our 11 MPs without extra support we face difficult decision to make sure we are able to deliver our statutory responsibilities and the services we are required by law to provide.”

Revealing the extent of the funding problem Surrey faces in a statement to council , Mr Hodge revealed the NHS transferred 860 adults with severe learning disabilities into the council’s care in 2011 - the largest transfer in the country - but the government had now effectively withdrawn its dedicated £69 million annual grant by rolling it into its overall grant, despite an estimated 36 per cent increase in the care packages needed by April 2017.

“We have reached the point where demand is so high that learning disabilities is actually the largest area of adult social care spend for this council,” he said. “Even higher than our spend on older people.”

Also calling on Government to take action, Surrey’s cabinet member for adult social care, Mel Few, said: “The Care Quality Commission is not the only organisation with worries about inadequate adult social care funding and the impact on already clogged-up hospitals. In Surrey the extra £24 million the county council needs to spend on rising demand is stretching finances to the limit.

“The county’s latest population growth data suggests rising numbers of over-65s in the next two decades will add a further £59 million to the authority’s bill for care for the elderly and disabled.

“While the two per cent council tax precept introduced nationally earlier this year was a welcome move, it falls many millions of pounds short of what is needed now – let alone in two decades.

“Should the Government contemplate using the precept to cover the gap, it would need to think about whether it is content to allow Surrey taxpayers to carry so large a burden for local services when they pay more income tax to the national exchequer than any other region outside London.”