Ms Collinge quite rightly queries why our council sees fit to fund Calderdale Citizens' Advice Bureau to the level it does when it is blatantly clear that there are other organisations funding the CAB to provide the same service.
This raises sever
al issues, the first being: why does our council give this organisation so much of the budget in comparison to others, such as Dart, Age Concern and Calderdale Women's Centre?
The CAB receives more than £360,000 a year for advice provision. Is is also funded by other agencies to provide this same service in Calderdale?
In the CAB's case I understand that council funding was allocated so that it could offer a full advice service, including telephone advice. Yet now we learn that HBOS also funds this service.
The CAB is also supposed to provide housing advice from the council's funding. However once again we learn that another agency funds this service. Is this duplication legal or should our council be investigating this matter?
Why is the CAB claiming cash from our council to help it to pay rent on the all but empty premises in Elland? Is this good use of our money?
Is the CAB using the money given to it by our council to provide a good service? Writers to Your say do not seem to think so.
Perhaps one of our newly elected members would raise these points at the next relevant council meeting.
Or Sylvia Valentine, of Calderdale CAB, might wish to clarify her previous letter ("Our bureau has lost cash too", Your say, April 7) and explain why apparent cuts in council funding have hit the CAB as hard as she claimed.
J. F. Marshall
The full article contains 312 words and appears in Evening Courier newspaper.
