Council tax payers could soon face a £1.6 million bill for their councillors following new recommendations by an independent panel.

The bill leaped by 72 per cent to £1.3 million last autumn based on the findings of a panel chaired by Rodney Brooke, the former secretary of the Association of Metropolitan Authorities and chief executive of the former West Yorkshire County Council. Councils are now required by law to establish and maintain independent remuneration panels instead of setting allowances for themselves.

The panel at that time recommended a 55.75 per cent increase for Council leader Councillor Margaret Eaton, taking her allowance from £26,100 to £40,650.

There was also an increase of the flat rate allowance from £8,150 to £10,650. The new rate included £650 for telephone costs. Special responsibility allowances were all increased for members with key jobs including portfolio holders and chairmen of influential scrutiny and planning committees were also increased last Autumn.

But the panel made the point then that the total was only 0.17 per cent of the Council's £800 million budget and that backbench MPs with fewer responsibilities than Coun Eaton received £55,000 a year.

On Tuesday the Council will consider a review by the panel of its previous recommendations taking into account new regulations on allowances and representations from political groups.

Its main recommendations are:

l paying allowances for the first time to non-councillors who have been co-opted on to committees;

l paying a special responsibility allowance for the first time to the chairman of the education appeals panel because the job is so time consuming;

l increasing telephone allowances to £900 and giving increases to allowances based on inflation;

l giving the standards committee the right to withhold all or part of a suspended member's allowances;

l allowing members to join the Council's pensions scheme with their allowances treated as the amounts on which the pensions were payable and

l giving responsibility allowances to the whips of the main parties.

Councillor Jeanette Sunderland, leader of the Liberal Democrat group, said her group had not yet discussed the recommendations.

Tory group chief whip, Councillor Anne Hawkesworth, said the existing phone allowance came nowhere near the amount councillors were spending.

Labour group chief whip, Councillor Tony Cairns, said: "We have an independent panel and we don't try to interfere. It is in line with Government regulations."

If the recommendations are accepted they will cost the Council an extra £106,500 up to the end of the financial year next April and £212,000 for subsequent years.