A petition to stop the planned reduction of funding for the local CAB advice service has met retaliation from the Council, who say the cuts are necessary.
The staff at the Council-funded CAB in Bath and North East Somerset are facing a 55% decrease in funding from next April.
The petition was started to try and prevent plans to cut the money given to Bath’s Citizens Advice Bureau. The service, which currently receives £408,000 a year from the Council, provides advice and support to local residents when needed.
From next April, the contract between the CAB and the Council expires and a new service will begin it its place. The Council have however reduced the funding to £182,000 per year for the new service, which means that whoever wins the bid to run the universal advice service for the local area will have limited funding.
Though the CAB may still bid, they say the new funding isn’t enough to run the service effectively, even if they are limited to just providing support for vulnerable people.
The Citizens Advice Bureau is a charity, with a Bath subsidiary which supports 1,200 local residents a month. The petition created to stop the planned cuts has now reach well over 1000 signatures, triggering a Council debate on the matter. It can be found here: http://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/save-our-cab-in-banes
Bath and North East Somerset Council have said in a statement that back in November 2012, they were very clear that the adult services it funds in the future would be clearly focused on providing help and support for the most vulnerable people in society to support their independence.
“This was in light of national funding reductions unparalleled since the Second World War, increases in elderly population and rising costs.”
Their statement continued: “Over recent years, there has been a substantial growth in the number and range of help and advice services, particularly on the Internet. As a result, many of the universal advice services currently funded by the local taxpayer are already offered either elsewhere within the Council or by other organisations face-to-face, via the web or via telephone.
“To reflect this change, our new service will provide face-to-face advice and support for the most vulnerable people in society, including those in danger of becoming homeless, people at greatest risk of being unable to live independently and elderly residents who may need advice on how to remain in their own home.
“We need to be clear that the current contract for universal advice is being delivered under contract on behalf of the Council; the CAB were not selected on the basis of their mission statement – they were selected ahead of other bidders because their bid demonstrated that they could deliver our contract requirements in line with agreed targets. If other bidders had demonstrated this better than CAB, they would have been selected.
“Remember that CAB is funded by a number of bodies to work with specific groups, e.g. MacMillan Trust. Because the Council contract has ended (already extended by two years) for a universal advice does not mean that CAB cannot function its other services. The independent sector will be able to bid for the new service targeted at the most vulnerable in society over the coming months.
“Under law, we must now re-tender our advice service. We will shortly be going out to tender for this new service at a level of £182,000. Bath and North East Somerset Citizens Advice Bureau together with all other organisations in the independent sector will be able to bid to provide it on our behalf.”
