HASLEMERE residents face paying around an extra £50 in council tax next year, as well as cuts in services, after yet another round of low government grants.

Councils and the police learned this week how much money they were expecting to get from the government next year to help pay for services, and Surrey was again handed one of the lowest in England.

Ministers announced on Monday that they would be contributing just 20 per cent towards the estimated £570 million Surrey County Council will need to spend on public services next year – leaving council taxpayers in Surrey to pick up a massive 80 per cent of the council's expenditure.

Surrey is looking at slashing its costs by £50 million but will have to look at cutting services and increasing the cash it raises through its council tax.

"This settlement is bad news for Surrey, as again our taxpayers' money is being sent to fund increases to councils in the Midlands and north of England," council leader Nick Skellett said.

"It was a difficult decision to make, but I am determined that council tax rises will be kept to around five per cent next year and over coming weeks we will be discussing how best to achieve this."

Last year, the average council tax bill in Haslemere was £1,237.11 with £920.70 of it going to the county council. A five per cent increase will see this increase to £966.74.

Surrey Police Authority, which gets the next largest portion of the council tax, which last year stood at £154.26, is also disappointed with its low government grant.

The chairman of Surrey Police Authority, Liz Campbell, said that its 3.2 per cent increase in grant is not enough to meet its costs for inflation, pensions and proposed changes to the structure of the police force, before extra spending can even be considered.

"As a result, the force is set to operate against a very tight financial climate in 2006/07 and this is becoming an all too familiar year-on- year trend," she said.

"Despite this, we will continue to generate efficiency savings wherever possible in order to maintain the provision of a high-quality service for local people.

"We are mindful of the significant burden that council tax places on local people and the authority will do everything possible to keep the tax increase down and sustain current service levels."

A modest increase in its precept of three per cent would take its share of the council tax up to £158.89.

The news for Waverley Borough Council was "not as gloomy as we might have expected" was the verdict of council leader Gillian Ferguson, speaking to the Waverley executive on Tuesday.

The draft settlement figures for Waverley indicated a three per cent rise in 2006/07 and 2.7 per cent in 2007/08, however the council was able to secure extra cash to fund the government's plans for free bus travel for the elderly and disabled.

Councillors heard that other district and borough councils had fared better with director of finance Paul Wenham explaining that Waverley suffers badly under the new highly complicated "relative needs formula" used by the government in its calculations.

However, Waverley's portfolio holder for finance, Stewart Edge, indicated that he hoped Waverley would limit its rise to inflation which currently stands at 2.3 per cent.

Last year, Haslemere residents paid £140.13 to Waverley, taking its share to £143.35.

An inflation-only increase in the amount paid to the town council would take its precept up to £22.53, taking the total bill for the average home up to £1,291.51 – £54.40 more than this year.