LOCAL UNDER
Council plans to cut funding
Wishaw Citizens Advice Bureau could be forced to close after learning the bombshell news that North Lanarkshire Council plan to cut their funding in half.
The whopping 50 per cent slash in funding to Motherwell and Wishaw CAB has left the future of the service in serious jeopardy.
And CAB manager Kinga Kosakowska revealed to the Wishaw Press that the Wishaw office could lead to the closure of the office in the town.
Kinga said: “Motherwell and Wi s h aw C A B consistently perform to the highest standards, achieving exceptional results for some of the most vulnerable members of our community year after year.
“Over the last year our expert advice put a total of £ 5.5 million back into the pockets of local people.
“We supported a total of 11,000 local people deal with 30,000 complex issues across a breadth of advice including; benefits, debt, housing, employment, c o n s u m e r, energy, immigration, tax, family and pensions.
“Our work is more crucial than ever before, however North Lanarkshire Council is planning to slash the CAB’s funds.
“In order to meet the needs of the community we operate two full- time offices both in Mother well and Wishaw.
“This disproportionate cut to our funding may well lead to the closure of Wishaw CAB which has supported the community for more than 20 years.
“Last year, Wishaw CAB dealt with 5,000 clients and 15,000 issues. Where will these vulnerable people go for advice if we need to close our doors to them?”
The CAB estimates that for every £1 of funding provided by the council, Motherwell and Wishaw CAB has delivered financial gains of £62.58 and generated an additional £ 7 of funding. The CAB have also claimed that the council are planning to remove their ability to provide independent money advice for our clients, despite the CAB dealing with nearly 1400 debt cases in the past 12 months compared to 874 cases dealt with by NLC’s Money Advice team.
Airdrie and Shotts MSP Alex Neil called on Council Leader Jim Logue to resign in the wake of the controversy. Mr Neil said: “Jim Logue and his crew of merry men should resign in shame. They are letting down badly the people who elected them.
“Furthermore these cuts are totally unnecessary. If the council cut out the massive amounts of money it wastes on continually re-arranging the deck chairs amongst senior staff, wasteful doubling or trebling up of staff at countless meetings, spending many millions of pounds every year on using outside consultants and lawyers for work that it should be capable of doing itself, then there would be no need for any cuts at all.
“I hope the people of North Lanarkshire remember Labour ’ s treachery when they go to the polls to elect a new council next year.”
A NLC spokesman said the council agreed in March to carry out a review of advice services, which included all advice services operated by the council and all external organisations funded by the council.
The spokesman