Labour councillors are set to oppose proposals to increase allowances by more than £77,000, a council’s leader has revealed.

The increase is being proposed tomorrow evening by Ipswich Borough Council’s Independent Remuneration Panel (IRP), which is made up of independent community representatives.

If approved, it would mean a total increase of £38,806 from October until the end of the financial year, in March, and an extra £77,612 for the 2025/26 financial year.

This would mean a total £445,679 cost in 2025/26 for councillors’ allowances, compared to £368,075 this financial year.

Although councillors’ allowances are taxed as income, they are meant to cover the costs of carrying out council duties and depend on each councillor’s role and responsibility.

However, with between £13 million and £16 million in savings also being proposed during the same meeting to help plug the council’s £23 million budget gap over the next four years, council leader Neil MacDonald thanked the IRP but said it would not be appropriate to increase allowances by that much.

He added: “We’re going to reject the first two [recommendations] because we are aware that, at this time, we are going through a period of making savings.

“We don’t think it’s fair that we are taking a pay rise at a time when we have to make savings across the council and that will affect some of the services and some of the staff too.”

This means Labour councillors are set to oppose proposals for an extra £1,000 for the basic allowance and an increase in the multiplier applied to the leader’s special responsibility allowance.

Ipswich councillors currently have the lowest allowances, on average, across Suffolk and neighbouring districts — this is due to an increase being rejected during the last set of recommendations four years ago.

Cllr MacDonald added: “We are the cheapest in Suffolk and perhaps that makes it more difficult to recruit councillors, but most are not are not in it for the money.”

Instead, he revealed, the Labour Group would be in favour of four IRP recommendations — these are:

- An increase in the childcare and dependent carer’s allowance to £11 and £27.50 per hour respectively.

- Travel allowance continues to be based on HMRC recommended levels.

- The Local Government Officer Pay Award continues to be applied to the basic allowance each year.

- Allowances paid to co-opted members, non-elected members of a committee appointed to provide a specialist or outside perspective, change from £55 per meeting to £350 for the whole financial year.

Approving these, Cllr MacDonald added, would help to remove the roadblocks for those wishing to become a councillor.

For instance, increasing the childcare and dependent carer’s allowance would make it easier to pay for professionals to undertake care duties while councillors attended meetings — this money is not paid to councillors but to professionals directly.

The leader said: “I think that’s appropriate because we do want to encourage a wider range of people to become councillors.”

No assessment has yet been made of what voting for the four suggestions would cost, but it would take away from the bulk of the budget pressures being proposed by the IRP.