NORTH Yorkshire County Council has provisionally agreed a 4.9 per cent increase in its share of the council tax.

The authority's executive yesterday agreed to increase its precept by 4.9 per cent over the next 12 months.

It equates to an extra £40.04 a year, or 77p a week, for an average Band D property.

The final figure will not be decided until the Government announces how much money it is giving local councils at the end of the month. Councillors will finalise the budget in mid-February.

Council leader John Weighell said: "We're determined to maintain and improve services for everyone in North Yorkshire.

"These budget proposals will enable us to improve investment in some important services while broadly maintaining service levels across the board.

"We cannot finalise our budget until we get the Government's final figures at the end of this month.

"We will continue to pass to schools the full value of increases in the Government's funding formula.

"We will continue our investment programme in libraries and in modern technology; and we have succeeded in attracting additional grants for highway maintenance through the Local Transport Plan."

But he warned that there were a number of pressures on the budget, mainly caused by the Government's decision to ask the council to pay back more than £1m in grant money.

The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister told the council that it gave the authority too much money last year after recalculating grant levels taking new population figures into account.

Coun Weighell said: "Our task has been made more difficult by the Government's decision to claw back some £1.05m of grant for last year - money we have already spent on service improvement.

"This means we have to identify significant efficiency savings, adjust priorities, approach some of our targets more slowly and review our policy towards our reserve balance for future years.

"More specifically, we face continuing severe pressure on some services particularly care of vulnerable people, stemming from both reductions in some Government grants and rising costs."

Last year, the authority increased its portion of the council tax bill by £49 for the average Band D property