Last week I outlined the major challenges being faced by Ipswich Borough Council from soaring prices.

This amounts to around £15 million of extra costs over the next four years. In response the Government has allocated us just £2.3 million extra funding.

The other “help” that the Government has given councils like Ipswich is the “option” to raise council tax by an extra 1%.

In fact, all the Government’s publicity around how much extra they are giving assumes that councils will raise their council tax by the maximum amount.

Ipswich Star: Ipswich Borough Council.Ipswich Borough Council. (Image: Ipswich Borough Council)

For Ipswich Borough Council this would mean increasing council tax from 2% to 3%. To put this into perspective, an extra 1% on Ipswich’s council tax raises £150,000 a year so it doesn’t go anywhere near bridging our funding gap.

However, to protect services from deeper cuts we feel that we have no choice but to increase council tax by 3%.

This is less than a third of the rate of inflation so still amounts to a real terms cut. It is also lower than wages are increasing in both the public and private sector and will add 17p a week to the council tax of the average Band B property.

Ipswich Borough Council makes up less than a fifth of council tax bills in Ipswich with Suffolk County Council and the Police and Crime Commissioner levying the rest.

And for the sixth year running Labour-run Ipswich Borough Council is increasing its element of council tax by less than Conservative-run Suffolk County Council and Suffolk’s Conservative Police and Crime Commissioner.

Whereas Ipswich’s increase is 17p a week, the Police and Crime Commissioner is raising bills by 22p and the County Council by a whopping 86p – five times higher than the Borough Council’s increase.

Keeping our increase lower than the other two authorities is one way we can help Ipswich residents with the Cost of Living Crisis along with the other long standing measures such as keeping free brown bins free of charge.

Ipswich Borough Council is still the only council in Suffolk which doesn’t charge for brown bins. The cost in other areas has reached up to £69 and is being increased at a faster rate than council tax.

We will keep the free summer I-Card for children on free school meals, maintain our popular free summer events programme and keep attractions such Christchurch Mansion and our fantastic parks and play areas free of charge.

We will continue to invest in Solar PV, improved insulation and boiler replacement programmes in our council houses to keep energy bills down.

But, given the severity of the Cost of Living Crisis, we want to do more which is why we are changing the help we give to people on low incomes with their council tax.

From April we will increase the maximum amount of support we give from 95% of the bill to 100%.

We will also bring in a dramatically simplified new scheme for working people on Universal Credit so they don’t receive a new bill every time their income varies by even a small amount.

This means that an average Ipswich Band B household receiving full support won’t see their bills rise this year. In fact, their bills will fall by £70.53.

On top of this, the Government has also provided money to reduce the council tax bills of people on the lowest incomes by up to £25. Because of the changes to our local scheme, we can make this money stretch much further to cover the cost of reductions up to £75, triple the Government’s offer.

As a result of both these changes 10,406 Ipswich households will see their council tax bills fall this year and 7,685 households will have no council tax at all to pay.

This applies to the total bill and not just Ipswich Borough Council’s element. You don’t have to apply for a reduction, it will be applied automatically.