A report on the latest financial projections for the coming four years warns that Gwynedd Council may have to deliver as much as £47 million of savings over the next four years.
The preliminary analysis – which was considered by the Gwynedd Council Board on 27 July – is based on the Chancellor’s recent emergency budget which announced an average reduction of 25% in most departmental budgets during the 2011/12 – 2014/15 period.
Councillor John R. Jones who Leads on the Council’s Financial Strategy said:
“Following the Chancellor’s recent budget, the extent of the financial challenge facing public services and the communities we serve is becoming clearer – and the situation is looking extremely bleak.
“Whilst the exact situation will not be confirmed until the autumn, our initial projections show that we may have to deliver around £47 million of savings over the coming four years.”
The report states that, if the £47million projection proves accurate, that it would be equivalent to one of the following:
* deleting the net budget of every Gwynedd Council service apart from Education, Social Services and Regulatory Services
* cutting 87% of Gwynedd Council’s Social Service’s net budget
* cutting Gwynedd Council’s education budget by half.
With cross-party support Gwynedd Council has already identified £16 million of savings of which £12 million is still available for the next two years. But even if Gwynedd Councillors were willing to raise Council Tax by 4% in each of the next four years to protect services, this would still mean that the Council might need to find a further £7 million for the two year period 2011/12-2012/13; along with a further £21 million for the following two year period 2013/14 – 2014/15.
Gwynedd Council’s Corporate Director with responsibility for finance Dilwyn Williams added:
“Whilst we will not know for certain the level of grant we are likely to receive for the next four years until November we must plan ahead if we are to try and minimise the impact upon Gwynedd’s citizens. The fact that we have already identified £12 million of the savings that we will need to deliver means that we are in a stronger position than many councils to face this huge challenge.
“However, the sheer magnitude of the funding cuts which are heading our way will mean that we will have to re-double our efforts and start considering some extremely radical options.”
At the meeting of the Council Board on 27 July, councillors unanimously supported a recommendation that the Savings Programme Board which is already in place is given the task of developing a new overall strategy to include some specific options for meeting projected deficits in 2011/12 and 2012/13 along with outline proposals for the following two years.
Specific figures of how the funding cuts will impact upon individual Welsh councils will be published by the Welsh Assembly Government in November.
