Come 1 April and the start of the new financial year, businesses and homeowners alike will be facing significant increases in the taxes and rates paid to our local authorities.

In Gwynedd, the latest crunching of numbers shows that the council will need to find £12 million in either higher taxes or reduced spending.

In Powys, the figure is £40 million, and the reality of its financial plight has meant that already councillors have looked at closing some leisure centres over the Christmas and holiday period, and have considered taking their schools online for one day a week in an effort to save on overheads.

Both of those measures have ultimately been rejected by councillors — but the episodes show that the writing over higher taxes and reduced services is clearly in the wall.

And then there’s Ceredigion. Oh dear.

It has a £10 million shortfall in its finances that must somehow be covered off through increased taxes — as inevitable as death itself — or through cutbacks in services.

It is that matter of service provision that is already severely lacking in the county.

For weeks on end, council staff have failed to pick up bins and recycling. Communities across the county have had piles of rubbish, clear recycling bags, food bins and glass and bottle boxes left by the roadside for lorries that never come.

The council says staff shortages and some inclement weather have disrupted collections over the holiday period. That indeed may be the case, but hundreds of home and businesses owners are simply fed up with the level of service being provided in a hit-and-miss manner by the council.

Perhaps the most basic service that a council is expected to do — and that its customers who pay the bills rightly anticipate — is collecting bins. — not excuses.

Taxpayers have had enough of empty offices and empty promises. They are sick of consultants, tired of waiting for things to be fixed, fed up seeing businesses shut.

It’s particularly vexing for taxpayers to read that the council’s CEO, Eifion Evans, earns in excess of £2,600 every week. For that level of salary, one might at least expect he could ensure his retinue of staff, even those working from home, would be able to organise bin collections.

Taxpayers want a council that works — and it’s Mr Evans job to see that should happen.