Reserves will help delay cuts to advice service

It is pretty intimidating to find yourself in a room of incredibly beautiful women who are at least a foot taller than you. That is why I always wear ‘stripper’ shoes on the red carpet, because they are all up there looking at me from their great height” THE chief executive of Citizens Advice (Examiner, March 2) says that the upcoming loss of 3.5 staff posts “will (not) impact on the service.”

It will not have been his intention, but it implies that the contribution of the staff concerned was not so great.

It therefore needs saying that these are all very hard working, committed people indeed, and I for one would certainly feel the impact of their loss.

I am sure that the CEO actually feels the same. He is an honourable person who always tries to do the right thing, but he faces a cruel situation as I see it (he will not agree).

Yes, Government cuts, but also a local council which appears to play the Government’s game and trustees who for whatever reason seem to have not been able to protect their staff and through them their clients’ best interests.

Your report shows a way out in the quote that there are a number of promising “things in the pipeline” (ie possible funding) for later this year.

The CAB is sitting on £575,000 of reserves, according to its publicly available annual report – admittedly of March 2016, but it seems likely there will still be a bit left.

Their reluctance to commit any of this when there might be years of austerity ahead is understandable, but with possible funds in that pipeline such a short time away I urge the trustees to consider using a very small portion of those reserves to delay these redundancies and cuts until the funds do – or don’t – materialise.

These cuts do not need to be made yet.