Less frequent bin collections, a slew of job losses and slashing service budgets are all on the cards for Gwynedd as the council aims to make more than £5m in savings over the next three years in a bid to balance the books.

Cyngor Gwynedd’s Cabinet will discuss the council’s draft budget for 2024/25 at a meeting on 20 February.

Battling a financial black hole that will see savings having to be made of £5,169,150 between now and 2027, Cyngor Gwynedd has identified just shy of £2m in savings for 2024/25.

Those savings will mean more than a dozen job losses, with further restructuring of departments and staffing levels mooted for later years.

Cuts will be made to budgets across most services, with plans to save cash by reviewing the frequency of bin collections alongside the collection of nappy only bags.

Beach clean-up funding is also set to be cut, with reductions in summer activities for children.

Significant savings are set to be identified in the care home sector in the county.

Crematorium and cemetery fees are also set to rise.

The council will also stop producing its Newyddion Gwynedd ‘newspaper’.

A report set to be put before members said: “Cyngor Gwynedd has realised over £39.1m of savings schemes since 2015/16, but once again this year as in previous years the grant from the Welsh Government was not sufficient to meet inflation, and as demands in various areas such as adult care, waste, transport, and homelessness are also increasing, we have been in a continuous cycle of having to find savings.”

“Due to the poor financial settlement and also the current economic climate and the high levels of inflation, it is inevitable that local authorities must continue to look at savings and cuts to help the financial situation.”

A Cyngor Gwynedd spokesperson said: “A lack of public sector funding means Gwynedd has already had to find £70 million of savings and cuts over the past few years.

“To set a budget for the coming year, councillors have to make difficult decisions to find an additional £15 million.

“Although the council has no choice but to implement a number of cuts to services, with £5.3 million worth of further cuts under consideration for 2024/25, we will continue to protect the services that the most vulnerable children and families depend on, together with shielding the county’s schools from additional cuts.”

Councillor Ioan Thomas, Cyngor Gwynedd’s Cabinet Member for Finance, said: "Gwynedd is one of the two local authorities to receive the least amount of funding from the Welsh Government as our population has fallen more than any other county.

“But our costs remain high – for instance, the fact that slightly fewer children attend our schools doesn’t make it cheaper to heat the classroom, to run the school bus or to make sure the school building itself is safe and secure.

“Last year, we were able to avoid £6.4 million of service cuts or council tax increases by introducing new and innovative ways of running services.

“We continue to call on the Westminster Government to fund local councils fairly and echo the Welsh Local Government Association’s message that consequential funding derived from additional funding for English councils should be passed on in full to Welsh councils.

“As things stand, we anticipate that the situation over the coming two years will be critical.”

Cabinet members will make final recommendations on the draft budget on Tuesday before it is due to be officially signed off at a full council meeting on 7 March.

• Transfer Maesgeirchen Youth Centre into Maes Ni Community Hub (to save £24,720)

• Restructuring of Education Data Unit (£24,700)

• Adjust the out-of-county budget to align with actual spending (£125,000)

• Stop the provision of thematic resources packs (£45,800)

• Amend the Key Stage 4 Behaviour hubs arrangements (£18,000)

• Reducing the internal Youth Service training budget (£24,000)

• Review the managerial structure of the Youth Service protecting the frontline resource (£50,720)

• Library Service for Schools – review the level of provision of Lori Ni (£18,000)

• Reduce the staffing resource in the ADP unit (£67,676)

• Reduce staffing resources in the Inclusion team (£23,000)

• Reducing Gwynedd’s contribution to GwE (£70,000)

• Increase income by collecting commercial waste from holiday accommodation (£360,000)

• Countryside Service (Rights of Way and Access) - Not accepting inflationary increases on budgets (£15,000)

• Traffic and Projects - No Inflation on budget to deliver improvements to stretches of the highway (£10,280)

• Trading Standards – Reduce budget to evidence criminal law violations and expert proactive work (£9,000)

• Reduce the structure of the Public Protection support team by one post (£29,636)

• Delete one support and technical assistant post which supports traffic and projects units and parking and street works (£33,410)

• Review the level of staff resource and/or restructure the services within Public Protection (£100,000)

• Increase the fee for translation work (£9,760)

• Procurement - Stop using the on-line ordering system ‘marketplace’ which is used to order stationery (£17,160)

• Communication and Engagement - Stop publishing the Newyddion Gwynedd paper (£19,190)

• Restructure the Human Resources Advisory Service (£43,500)

• Restructure and reduce the management unit’s staffing resources (£61,813)

• Organisational Learning and Development - Delete one post within the structure (£26,320)

• Procurement - Delete one post of the structure of the Procurement Service (£50,860)

• Emergency Planning - Withdrawal from the regional emergency planning agreement and provide the service in-house (£21,370)

• Organisational Learning and Development - Cut supplies budget (£41,610)

• Customer Contact - cutting Siop Gwynedd’s opening hours at the three main offices (£50,000)

• Reduce the resource in the council’s Business Support Team (£30,000)

• Restructure the service within the 2024/25 year and reduce the staffing resource as a result (£40,617)

• Communication and Engagement - Delete the post of communications officer (£33,300)

• Savings from rationalising agreement/numbers of mobile phones (£85,000)

• Reduce use of electricity in the council’s IT data centre (£30,000)

• Electricity savings by switching off equipment outside core hours (£30,000)

• Taxes - Reduce overtime budget and aim to complete the work within core hours (£15,000)

• Management Unit - Delete the post of executive support officer/assistant accountant completely (£24,200)

• IT - reduce the opening hours of the IT help desk (£70,000)

• Payroll - Cut a salary technician post (£31,530)

• Payments - delete one post (£29,360)

• Benefits – Reduce the hours of a benefit assessment job (£12,590)

• Accounting – Review the accounting staff resource (£37,840)

• Internal Audit – restructuring (£45,340)

• Income – restructuring (£45,000)

• Arfon Tennis Centre lighting upgrade to create energy cost saving (£25,000)

• Libraries - efficiencies in adapting working arrangements (£51,088)

• Economic Development Programmes - Surrender the remaining budget from transferring a job to another department (£10,143)

• Marketing and Events – Not subscribe to two tourism associations (£1,000)

• Marketing and Events - Cutting consortia membership pay (£3,250)

• Maritime – Reduce a proportion of spending on beach clean-up (£20,000)

• Archives – review staffing resource (£14,136)

• Libraries - Reduce the expenditure on the books fund due to fewer loans (£30,000)

• Marketing and Events - Cut marketing and events post (£39,793)

• Regeneration - Save 40 per cent of an executive officer (£20,728)

• Reduce community art activity budgets (£5,000)

• Reduce children’s summer fun activities (£5,000)

• Reduce children’s summer reading challenge activities (£3,090)

• Cut the budget for the Snowdonia website text development (£7,120)

• Cut 2.5 FTE administrative job across the services (£79,469)

• Residential and Nursing Homes: Help 20 individuals to continue to live in the community (as opposed to a residential care home) (£150,000)

• Not fill a support worker vacancy (£21,303)

• Telecare Service – Review specific care packages and provide technology/telecare expert input to reduce the need for traditional care/support (£33,000)

• Provider Service Management and Administration: Cut one admin post by restructuring (£30,900) Learning disabilities: a) Transfer 10 support services packages to direct payments over time. b) Look at 1:1 support with a view to saving 10 per cent by increasing group/work opportunities) Reduce Support Services travel by 25 per cent (£193,089)

• Look at arrangements for preparing second choice meals in care homes (£50,000)

• Cut 0.2FTE off the well-being team leader post who is responsible for carers issues (£12,000)

• Re-assess five supported accommodation cases that receive 1:1 or 2:1 hours (20 per cent saving on five cases) and establish tenancies in one supported accommodation (£157,060)

• Savings of 10 per cent on private contracts and internal day services by reviewing 1:1 and 2:1 packages (£377,546)

• Income and Welfare Unit: Cut half a post (0.5 FTE) (£22,200)

• Adults and Children Finance Processing Team: Cut half a post (0.5 FTE) (£15,630)

• Reduce the hours of the well-being officer (£20,940)

• Review the business service of the Highways, Engineering and YGC Department (£65,000)

• Adjust the timing of our road gritting and carry it out within working hours, where possible (£60,000)

• Refine the street lighting dimming scheme (£25,000)

• Increase the crematorium fee (£25,000)

• Increase cemeteries fee (£35,000)

• Change of system to rural high-ground cuts/frequency/vertical and the time between the growing seasons (£46,000)

• To not employ a grounds maintenance seasonal workforce (£20,000)

• Restructure the Highways Service (£250,000)

• Amendments following the introduction of the Street Scene Service (£40,000)

• Reduce the structures maintenance work programme (£71,000)

• Reduce the road dressing programme of the highway maintenance service (£185,000)

• Reduce the programme to re-surface footpaths (£60,000)

• Delete travellers’ support vacant post (£18,390)

• Cut one enforcement officer post (£43,400)

• Estates Unit - fund work on the Housing Action Plan by the senior estates surveyor and half an assistant estates surveyor’s post through the council tax premium (£70,605)