Councils are to roll out far-reaching cuts to local services from next week in the latest round of belt-tightening, which town hall leaders warn will bring local government in England and Wales "to its knees".

A survey of 81 councils by the Guardian reveals communities around the country will be hit, with arts and sports budgets slashed, youth centres closed and support for thousands of vulnerable people withdrawn as authorities struggle to deal with a growing financial crisis.

Council leaders, who are preparing to implement their fourth spending reduction programme in three years, warn that the situation "fills them with horror" and predict things will get worse, with plans already being drawn up for even deeper cuts in a year's time.

After last week's budget, which made it clear local government will continue to bear the brunt of public spending cuts beyond the current spending review period, council leaders said municipal finances were increasingly unsustainable.

Spending cuts new Photograph: Graphic

Sir Merrick Cockell, the Conservative chairman of the Local Government Association, told the Guardian local authorities will have lost a third of their budget by 2015: "This is the calm before the storm. We do not know how big the storm will be or how long it will last."

The Guardian surveyed 81 councils in England and Wales, and among those that responded to each question:

• Almost half said they were planning to reduce spending on care services for adults, hitting those with learning difficulties or disabilities. Eight have scrapped care for those deemed to have "moderate" needs, leaving thousands of vulnerable people with reduced support.

• More than 50% said they would be cutting the money spent on children's services and a fifth said they would be closing – or transferring responsibility for – youth centres in their areas.

• Almost two-thirds plan to cut spending on culture and sports with one, Wigan, slashing its budget by more than three-quarters.

• Planning budgets are being hit, with 75% saying there would be cuts in the next 12 months, some of almost 50%. Richard Rogers and other leading architects warn in the Guardian that the cuts will undermine the government's ambition to give local people more say over planning, instead placing it in the hands of property developers and their lawyers.

• Four councils said they would be closing libraries or transferring them to community ownership, although campaigners claim this is just the tip of the iceberg.

• Sixteen authorities said they were changing the frequency of bin collection and introducing more recycling. Some have taken up government grants to maintain or return to weekly rounds. Others are sticking with or moving to fortnightly collections, arguing they are greener and more cost-efficient.

• Total spending across four key areas – adult social care, children's services, planning, and culture and leisure – is falling in more than half of the authorities providing complete figures.

Councils say the pressures facing local authorities – reflected in persistent reports that even Conservative-led councils are in open revolt against the communities secretary, Eric Pickles – will be compounded by a series of parallel welfare changes which take effect in April, such as the introduction of the so-called bedroom tax.

There is widespread nervousness that government plans to force many low-income families to pay a proportion of council tax for the first time from April will lead to widespread non-payment, further destabilising council finances.

The government has attempted to play down the impact of cuts to councils in England from April by presenting them as average "spending power" reductions of just 1.7%. But councils argue the cumulative effect of three years of cuts is starting to bite deeply into their capacity to deliver key services. They say that despite having made £5bn worth of cuts since June 2010, including the axing of 230,000 jobs, local authorities across the political spectrum will be forced to "decommission" entire services including libraries, arts, leisure facilities, youth services and after-school clubs.

Core services that have so far largely escaped the axe, such as care of older people and child protection, are also starting to feel the effects. Councils are tightening eligibility for some services, and introducing or increasing charges for others, from meals on wheels to after-school clubs.

Sir Albert Bore, the leader of Birmingham council, the UK's biggest local authority, said that savings estimates made last year of £600m by 2016-17 – equivalent to half of the council's budget – had now been revised upwards before June's comprehensive spending review.

Bore, who warned last year that the current trajectory of cuts signalled "the end of local government as we know it", said this week the city was preparing to "start a dialogue about decommissioning services" in the summer. Birmingham has reduced spending by £350m since 2010. Bore said: "We simply cannot go through these cuts in the way we have done in previous years. We have to take more radical action."

Nick Forbes, leader of Labour-controlled Newcastle council, said: "The future cuts fill me with horror. We've been through hell already in Newcastle. The impact of another three years of cuts will bring local government to its knees."

Forbes said he feared social services would be stretched even further as welfare cuts, including the bedroom tax and council tax benefit abolition, took their toll on already financially stretched low-income families. "We will see thousands of people in crisis," he said.

Local Government Minister Brandon Lewis said: "Since 2010, residents' satisfaction with their councils has gone up and council tax has been kept down. There is great potential for more sensible savings to cut waste and improve efficiency across both local and central government."

Bucking the trend

Amid the budgetary gloom, some local authorities are prioritising innovative programmes aimed at getting maximum social impact from their rapidly diminishing resources.

Newham council in east London, for example, has introduced a series of policies aimed at building what it calls "personal and community resilience".

These include a jobs programme for local unemployed people, free school meals for all primary schoolchildren, and the Every Child a Musician programme which offers a free musical instrument and two years of tuition for all year-five and year-six pupils in its primary schools.

Other boroughs, such as Islington and Southwark, and the Welsh government, fund universal free school meals in primaries, arguing that this delivers wider and longlasting academic and health benefits for pupils. Similarly, Blackpool council is piloting a free breakfasts scheme for all its 12,000 primary school children.

In their different ways, these projects, along with attempts to protect Sure Start programmes and parenting schemes, are bold attempts to deploy shrinking resources strategically to help residents to develop skills and resilience to cope with the pressures of austerity.

They are also a tacit acceptance that the comprehensive welfare and municipal services of the pre-austerity years are unlikely to return.

Reporting team:

Matthew Taylor, John Burn-Murdoch, Jemma Buckley, Lauren

Stone, James Brilliant, Oliver Todd, Tamsin Rutter and Patrick Butler