AN advice service that gives Herefordshire an estimated £7m boost annually through the funding it secures for at-risk residents, is itself at risk.

Herefordshire Council announced this week that when the Citizens Advice Bureau grant comes up for review in March, it will be recommended that it is not to be renewed.

The funding – which includes a grant of £117,460 and accommodation costing £75,000 a year – forms the backbone of the service’s budget.

However, with backdrop of health and social care cuts taking hold in 2015, the council is looking to fold part of the advice service into a new, broader health organisation, overseen by the council.

Helen Coombes, Herefordshire Council’s director for adults and wellbeing, said: “As health and social care reforms begin to take effect, information and advice services will need to be delivered in a different way to traditional advice services.

“We have to work with our colleagues in health to decide how we can deliver integrated information and advices services for families, individuals and carers at a local level.

“Herefordshire Citizens Advice Bureau has been fully involved in these discussions and we hope the Bureau will be one of the organisations that expresses an interest in providing this new service.”

Ms Coombes added that the council value the work of the CAB – which provides anyone, from cancer-sufferers to young families, quality financial, legal and relationship advice.

If the proposal to stop CAB’s grant is approved by the council’s cabinet, the new service will go out to tender with a view to the new contract beginning in April.

In a statement today a council spokesman said that new service will provide broad, comprehensive signposting advice and information that covers all aspects of care and health information for adults across the county.

The statement gave changing legislation, increased demand for care and a need to balance a significantly reduced budget as the reasons for the proposed change.

Herefordshire CAB came close to losing its grant earlier this year, however following a two-month public campaign, the council performed a U-turn, agreeing to continue supporting the service until 2015.

The decision was taken, in part, to give Herefordshire Council “time to work with the CAB and plan beyond 2015,” council leader Tony Johnson said in January.