Dorset Council has criticised last week’s three-year provisional Local Government financial settlement, which failed to deliver the significant boost to funding it says the county deserves.

Although the new three-year settlement does give a new level of certainty of income, the government is forcing councils such as Dorset to raise council tax to the maximum level, just to stand still, says the council.

Councillor Simon Clifford, Cabinet Portfolio member for Finance and Capital Strategy, explained why he viewed the provisional settlement as ‘another disappointment’.

He said: ‘On paper, it looks like we got an extra £25.9m in funding – but in reality, £24.1m of that is extra council tax.’

‘We asked for fairer funding for a rural county with an ageing population needing social care support. We need investment to improve transport and to boost schools. We hoped to have had good news that would give Dorset residents better services and more help to support vulnerable people.

‘Sadly, we have been let down – again. The government has even removed the extra funding we were hoping for to recognise that it is more expensive to provide services in a very rural county.’

Councillor Simon Clifford added: ‘It means that once again rural councils like Dorset are being left behind, having to increasingly rely on getting income from council tax rather than funding from central government.

‘The government expects us to increase council tax by 4.99% each year. We essentially no longer have any choice in this.’

Councillor Clifford added that thanks to ‘prudent planning’ the council would be able to set a balanced budget for 2026/27, although further savings will need to be found.

The council says details about its budget will be published in January.