CONSERVATIVE councillors have voted to approve the budget for the next 12 months in the face of fierce opposition from Labour and the Liberal Democrats.

Residents will pay an average of 4.99 per cent more in borough council tax although some areas will see an increase of as much as 7.2 per cent.

The transfer of services from the borough council to new and existing parishes mean that when the various precepts are factored in, households could be charged as much as 11.3 per cent more than last year.

Swindon Borough Council has to find savings of almost £50m between now and 2020 - all at a time when the cost of providing social care to vulnerable adults and children is rocketing and funding from central government is reducing fast.

Russell Holland, the Cabinet Member for Finance, said that while no councillor was elected expecting to have to grapple with such a significant challenge in local government funding, tough decisions had to be taken.

He said the council was putting more money into social care for adults and children and helping those most in need.

But acknowledging that the decision to increase council tax while offloading services was unpopular with some people, he said the reality was that spending more on social care meant many people would not see where much of their tax was spent.

But commending the budget to his colleagues, he said: "We prioritise the vulnerable, we make no apology for that."

Labour were highly critical of the budget put forward by the Conservative administration. But in a move that came as a surprise to those in the chamber, they did not offer any amendments to it.

The group's finance spokesman, Kevin Small, said the decision was taken because the party did not want to involve itself in a budget he described as "unfair, unbalanced, and verging on illegal".

But it soon became apparent that in choosing not to put up amendments, the opposition had left itself open to accusations of having no alternative plans.

Coun Small warned that the budget was overly reliant on ambitious savings targets that could not be guaranteed.

He said £4.1m could be classed as risk and slammed the administration for being "incapable of finding savings."

Calling the budget "unrealistic", he said the council risked being "bankrupt by March 2018" without a change of direction.

The Labour group's leader, Jim Grant, said the budget would see residents of Swindon "paying more, but getting a lot less."

While he acknowledged that every local authority in the country was grappling with funding challenges, he said that no other council had gone so far as to introduce a new layer of government across the town in an effort to make ends meet.

The senior Liberal Democrat councillor in the chamber, Stan Pajak, also raised the wider national context but said he was not able to support the approach the Conservative administration was taking to tackling the problem.

Ultimately the budget, along with the record council tax increases, was passed by a vote that went straight along party lines.

With their majority on the council, the Conservatives were able to comfortably defeat the combined opposition of the two other parties.

As part of the need to find almost £50m in savings by 2020, the budget sets out plans to cut between 80 and 90 jobs at the council.

It is hoped this will achieve savings of £1.5m.

The Adver understands that council bosses have begun meeting staff to discuss the plans.