Cumbria County Council will still have to find more than £20m to pay for adult social care services even after a hike in council tax.

Adult social care is consistently Cumbria County Council's most expensive service.

Last year it cost £136.5m, more than double the cost of highways and transport services and almost eight times the cost of fire and rescue services.

The county last week approved a four per cent increase in council tax, two per cent of which is specifically for adult social care.

This two per cent will raise £2.5m in 2017/18 but that still leaves a multi-million-pound funding gap that the county must somehow plug.

The details have been revealed as council leaders nationally sound a warning shot about the crippling impact of social care costs.

In 2016/17, the difference between the funding Cumbria received for ASC and what needs to be spent on delivering services was £11.2m.

This gap is expected to increase – even with the extra £2.5m from the council tax – to £22.6m in 2017/18 and then £24.4m in both 2018/19 and 2019/20.

The council’s deputy leader Patricia Bell said: “The issue of social care funding is one of the major questions that, as a country, we will have to face in the coming years, and Cumbria is no exception.

“The Government is expecting councils with social care responsibilities to meet the growing pressures of social care, while at the same time failing to provide the cash that the service requires.

“However, this administration is not content to let the vulnerable or the elderly suffer because social care is underfunded.

"The county council has therefore taken the difficult decision to raise council tax in order to ensure our social care system gets at least some of the funding it needs.”

This is the eighth year the county has endured a funding cut from central government. It has been forced to find £198m in savings since 2011 and will have to find a further £52m by 2020.

At a time when demand for adult social care services is growing, CCC has been forced to spend less on adult social care.

Last year’s outgoing of £136.5m is down from £140m the year before.