Support service has funding cut in half
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A WELFARE and benefits advice service for pregnant women and people with mental health issues which is provided via the Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB) had its funding cut in half yesterday.
Councillors voted in favour of reducing the annual funding for two projects to £50,000 from £102,000.
Under the Mental Health and Midwifery schemes, advisers from the CAB offer tailored advice clinics, helping people to claim the full cash benefits they are entitled to from the government, and help them to get properly connected with service providers such as social work and the NHS.
At a meeting of Highland Council yesterday, leader Margaret Davidson said the value of the service was "inestimable" but the way people were accessing help was changing and a practical way forward would be to ask the CAB to absorb the funding loss and continue delivering the mental health and midwifery service from the core funding that it currently gets from the council for its full range of services.
She suggested that this could be "just for the short-term" until contracts could be rewritten and the service reviewed.
She urged councillors to support her motion to reduce the funding to £50,000.
But Liberal Democrat councillor for Inverness South, Thomas Prag, made a plea to safeguard the funding for another year using the council’s pot of reserves, saying it offered real help to some of the most vulnerable people.
And Roddy Balfour, Independent councillor for Culloden and Ardersier, said it was incumbent upon the local authority to support the CAB.
Nairn’s SNP councillor, Stephen Fuller, backed by Cromarty Firth councillor Maxine Smith, lodged an amendment calling for the schemes to receive £109,000 funding for another year.
However, councillors voted 48 to 20 in favour of Margaret Davidson’s motion to reduce the funding to £50,000.
