COUNCIL taxpayers in Sunderland are facing a seven per cent increase in the amount they pay for local services.

Sunderland City Council's cabinet will meet on Wednesday to agree budget proposals for the coming financial year.

The council's Labour leader, Colin Anderson, said education, social services and meeting public sector pay rises were the top priorities.

He said: "Our continuing investment in education is paying dividends in school performance. We have two new secondary schools opening next year and we are putting extra money into the education budget to meet their running costs.

"We have ever-increasing demands on social services, particularly in home support and residential care where the effect of the minimum wage is creating higher costs for the places we fund for people in private residential homes.

He said: "We have had to put more than £2m extra into the budget, on top of inflation, to protect these vital services.

"It is important to understand that increases in costs like this mean that the rate of inflation faced by councils is higher than that faced by the man in the street."

Higher-than-inflation pay settlements for firefighters, teachers and other council workers had to be accommodated in the budget, he said.

Councillor Bob Symonds, who holds the management portfolio, said the budget had been one of the most complex the council had dealt with but it had produced a sound package of proposals.

Government grant funding had left the council with "very little room for manoeuvre'' but some money had been found to begin to "address recycling and to continue the improvements we have made in greening the city"