Gwynedd’s ageing population means more pressure on social services and fewer people to provide care.

Cabinet accepted the results of the Llechen Lân (A Clean Slate) report, presented by Cabinet Member for Adults, Health and Wellbeing, Cllr Dilwyn Morgan, which anticipates that the combination of “financial challenges, the impact of demographic challenges on human resources, and the impact of demographic challenges on the demand for services will create a situation of failure for older people’s services,” unless something is urgently done to address the situation, the report stated.

Social care is one of the largest areas of expenditure for the council, with nearly 25 per cent of its budget allocated to Adult Social Care in 2022/23. Despite this, waiting lists persist and there are an increasing number of older people facing delays in receiving home, residential or nursing care in Gwynedd, the council said.

Corporate Director of Social Services Dylan Owen said the number of working people in Gwynedd had reduced by 5,000 according to the Census.

There was also a reduction in the number of children under 16 and the number of older people over 65 – and those over 85 had “increased substantially” whilst the number of people able to do social care work was reducing, he said.

“It’s projected that the demand for social care will rise by 57 per cent by 2043, while an additional 1,000 workers will be required to meet this growing need,” he said. “If we continue to have outward migration, and the increases in older people – the future is going to be challenging.

“We will need a thousand more carers in 20 years, than we need today.”

Due to budget challenges the report noted “even if the workforce to provide the services were to miraculously materialise, the accompanying financial implications would be drastic”.

And that “the projected additional costs for traditional care services alone are estimated to reach £24.3m annually by 2043 (barring any inflationary increases)”.

“The overarching message from Llechen Lân is that social services for older people in Gwynedd has reached a tipping point,” the council report said.

The chief executive Dafydd Gibbard said the report “highlighted a very serious problem” but the situation was “out of the council’s power to fix it alone.”

In a plea to young people who had left Gwynedd, Cllr Craig Ab Iago said: “Come home! There are grants to help you come home.”