Councillors have reacted angrily to an audit report suggesting that a decision to shut the county’s youth clubs placed too much emphasis on the financial savings it would generate.

Last year saw Gwynedd Council came under fire for cutting funding to Young Farmers groups and shutting all 39 of its youth clubs, saving £270,000.

The authority defended the decision,  stating that only 14 per cent of the county’s youngsters attended the county-run youth clubs and it set up a £50,000 fund to help soften the blow and help communities open their own clubs.

But the leader of Gwynedd Council was unhappy with an observation made by Welsh Government-appointed­ auditors who raised concern over aspects of the decision-making process.

The generally positive 2018-19 Gwynedd Council Annual Improvement Report, put together by the Auditor General, found that while the council had remodelled the youth service to make it “more sustainable”, service provision was “mostly driven by financial constraints rather than an understanding of long-term service demand.”

They also found that while it recognised “the preventative benefits that a sustainable and accessible youth service provides”, more could have been done to “understand the root causes of the problems that the service is trying to prevent.”

But speaking during the full council meeting, the leader said he could not accept such findings.

Cllr Dyfrig Siencyn, who despite being pleased with the report in general, believed that the conclusions were “incorrect”.

“We have been working and finding new ways of working that do greet the objectives of the (Well-being of Future Generations) act, and the youth service is a classic example of that and an effective model that should be an example to other authorities,” he said.

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