The future of Moray’s Citzien’s Advice Bureau proved a deciding factor in the outcome of yesterday’s council budget talks.
The organisation mainly offers advice on benefits, debt, employment, housing and relationships.
In response to increasing demand, management had hoped to use its reserves to push forward with an expansion programme.
But Moray Council’s administration group proposed slashing its funding by £14,000, despite warnings that such a move would waylay the bureau’s attempts to help more people.
Council leader Stewart Cree said officers had discovered that the Elgin-based advice group has savings in excess of £140,000.
But Mr Cree said: “We do not believe it is reasonable for a partner agency to use its reserves to fund an expansion in its services at a time when the council is forced to consider wide-ranging cuts elsewhere.
“By protecting the CAB reserves, the council is simply depleting its own.”
However, Fochabers Lhanbryde councillor, Douglas Ross, said he would only vote for the administration’s financial plan if CAB funding was left intact.
His demands were later met, and the budget was passed with little other alterations.
Chairman of the Moray bureau’s management board, Eddie Coutts, later spoke of his relief and thanked the councillors who fought for the group.
He added: “We are delighted at the outcome, we got what we believe was the right result.
“That means we can now hang onto the reserves which we have built up for more than 20 years.
“We can now look at the possibility of increasing our service, while the administration budget would have forced us to reduce what we can offer.”
Mr Cree later said that he had only learned about an imminent review of Moray Council’s relationship with the benevolent group during the meeting.
He said his change of heart was based upon the partnership between two bodies being reevaluated within months.
