Council figures show that the council will receive just under £192 million from Government this year – up from £170.5 million last year.
Documents from January 2023 also show the council expected to receive £170 million this year, though its expectations had risen in recent weeks.
The council had expected to receive just under £3.2 million from the rural services grant, which was paid to certain local authorities in recognition of the additional costs of delivering services in sparsely populated areas.
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As part of Labour’s local government spending review the grant was “re-purposed”.
The Government has also confirmed Northumberland will not receive any cash from the £600 million Recovery Grant announced as part of the Autumn Budget to support areas most in need.
These two factors mean that, despite uplifts in other areas, the county council has seen a decrease of £2.6 million since December in the amount it expected to receive from central Government.
Council leader Glen Sanderson branded the final settlement “disappointing” and warned the local authority would have to “tighten its belt”.
Speaking to the Local Democracy Reporting Service, he said: “Based on the professional expertise of our finance staff, we didn’t expect the total to be down by £2.5 million.
“We have had more in certain areas, but the total is £2.5 million less than had been expected. This is because the rural services delivery grant, which we expected to be £3.2 million, has been completely taken away and we have received absolutely nothing from the Recovery Grant.
“We had also expected the full amount of National Insurance contributions to be given back to councils by Government, but that has not happened. It looks like we’re going to be over £1 million short on that too.
“These are pretty serious implications for us. We are currently looking to see how we might be able to find further savings, but it won’t affect front-line services or our regeneration programme.
“Altogether it is a really disappointing settlement from Government. We will have to tighten our belts another notch.
“We had expected a significantly better contribution from Government given their assurance that there would be support for local government. Had we received a really good settlement, that would have allowed us to reduce council tax.”
According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, since 2010 overall funding for councils has fallen 9 per cent in real terms and is 18 per cent lower in real terms per person. Between 2010 and 2023, the Conservative Government cut funding to Northumberland by £130.18 million in real terms.
Northumberland Labour leader Scott Dickinson said: “This is the first time in 14 years that the council has had an increase in Government funding. To say otherwise is misleading.
“It is a significant rise to what was anticipated in terms of the austerity they had expected to get from their Government, which Cllr Sanderson never kicked off about for years. There is no getting away from the fact that the council has additional funding.
“The council has come off far better and had a real terms increase. Over the last eight years when the Conservatives have been in charge they have lost millions of pounds and there has never been a squeak.”
Responding to Cllr Sanderson’s comments, a spokesman for the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government said: “We are injecting £69 billion of funding into council budgets across England to help them drive forward the government’s Plan for Change, including a £20.3 million increase for Northumberland County Council.
“The Rural Services Delivery Grant does not properly account for need, and a large number of predominantly rural councils receive nothing from it. That is not right and is why we have re-purposed the grant to allocate money more effectively, announcing new funding for local areas.”