PLANS to increase pay for councillors in Winchester have been recommended for approval following a meeting of the city council’s overview and scrutiny committee.

The proposal represents a 7.9 per cent increase in basic allowances for city council members and would mark the first increase in a decade.

Previously, cuts to the basic allowance had been made in 2008/09 and 2009/10 to bring the figure down from £5,946 to the current £5,580 per year.

Members of the committee unanimously backed the plans, arguing that councillors have taken on an increased workload and the overall amount paid out would still be less than before councillor numbers were cut from 57 to 45 following a boundary review in 2015.

Changes to the special responsibility allowance (SRA), which is paid to councillors with “significant additional responsibilities”, were also recommended.

These included a rise of 7.9% in line with the basic allowance, as well as reducing the number of councillors eligible to receive it from six to four.

Conservative councillor Fiona Mather said: “Personally I don’t have any strong views and I see possibly political difficulties.

“We need to get agreement between the two parties, I think it is very important this is not used as a political football.”

Fellow Conservative councillor Frank Pearson said: “If we are using the number of councillors being reduced as a yard stick then one is looking at a relatively small increase. This is an independent review.”

Lib Dem councillor Lucille Thompson added: “There’s never a good time to put up allowances. We are all faced with larger wards and increased workloads.”

If agreed by full council, the basic allowance would rise to £6,023 – the equivalent of £14.85 an hour.

Responding to the news, a spokeswoman from the Taxpayers Alliance said: “It is welcome that councillors have made efforts to take on more work in order to reduce costs.

“Councillors simply cannot claim to have the moral authority to make tough decisions about council spending if they believe their own allowances should be immune.”