Elected county councils were created in 1889 under the Local Government Act 1888, taking over administrative functions that had previously been performed by unelected magistrates at the court of quarter sessions.

[3] Prior to 1860 the court sat in the four towns of Beccles, Bury St Edmunds, Ipswich and Woodbridge.

[4] Officially it remained one court of quarter sessions which adjourned after each day of hearings and travelled to a new venue, and the original draft bill in 1888 therefore envisaged that there would be a single Suffolk County Council.

Initially based at East Suffolk County Hall in Ipswich, the council relocated to Endeavour House in 2004.

[8] Controversy surrounding the then chief executive Andrea Hill, some concerning £122,000 spent on management consultants, featured in the local and national press in 2011;[9] this led to her facing a disciplinary hearing, and subsequently resigning.

District-level services are provided by the area's five district councils:[11] With the exception of Ipswich, the rest of the county is covered by civil parishes, which form a third tier of local government.

[23] Previously the council was based at County Hall on St Helen's Street in Ipswich, the oldest parts of which had been built in 1837 as a jail and courthouse, which had been one of the meeting places of the quarter sessions.