West Dunbartonshire Council Facts & Figures

Got a question about West Dunbartonshire Council or the local area? Hopefully you’ll find the answer below.

Facts

1. West Dunbartonshire Council is an average sized Council in Scotland.

2. The Council employs approximately 5,500 staff at its headquarters in Dumbarton, Clydebank and a variety of other locations.

3. The council provides more than 100 services including education, social work, housing, environmental health, planning, economic development, employment and financial support, Modern Apprentices, highways and transport, citizen contact centre and One Stop Shops.

4. The Council was formed on 1 April 1996 from part of the former Strathclyde Region - namely the entire district of Clydebank and the Dumbarton district less the Helensburgh area.

5. The Council vision is to improve prosperity and inclusion for all citizens, deliver better and more efficient services, and improve West Dunbartonshire as a place to live work and visit.

6. We serve a population of approximately 90,000.

7. The biggest age group is 45-59 years old (19,441 men and women)

8. The Council covers an area of around 98 square miles.

9. The percentage of total population who are income deprived is 22% (Scotland 16%).

10. Percentage of economically active people at a working age is 66% (Scotland 71%).

11. Life expectancy is 75.6 years (Scotland is 77.8 years).

Area overview

West Dunbartonshire has many strengths including significant sites of natural beauty and heritage, good transport links and close proximity to Glasgow and its airport. The area has a rich past, shaped by its world-famous shipyards along the Clyde, and boasts many attractions ranging from the iconic Titan Crane and Dumbarton Rock, to the beauty of the Loch Lomond and The Trossachs National Park and its historic whisky warehouses.

Recent successes

• Work on the Council’s major £180m Capital Investment programme across West Dunbartonshire is now well underway, which includes the delivery of new Council offices in Dumbarton Town Centre, two new state-of-the-art care homes, new schools, 13 new workshop spaces, and a new Clydebank Leisure Centre.
• Council is widely seen as an improving Council
• Auditors have praised it for 'delivering high quality public services and making progress on its strategic priorities
• Major budget savings have been made annually without the need for compulsory redundancies
• Many indicators of education performance are improving (positive destinations, school exclusions etc.)
• Only the second Council in Scotland to introduce a living wage for its workforce
• The only Council in Scotland to introduce an Overprovision policy to tackle alcohol problems
• An ambitious new school building programme that has delivered four new secondary schools and three new primary schools and moved more than 5,000 pupils into state-of-the-art facilities
• We have one of the best established Health and Social Care Partnerships in Scotland, having been one of the first authorities to set up a Community Health and Care Partnership with the NHS