CAB HEREFORDSHIRE Council is to axe its funding for the Citizens Advice Bureau using the new duties in the Care Act 2014 as a justification for this decision.

Herefordshire CAB is one of the best performing CABs in the country and operates in a county with no legal aid providers for those needing help on housing, community care, mental health or welfare benefits problems.

Herefordshire has many charities providing advice but none is equipped to fill the legal aid gap and take on the council when it is behaving badly.

I suppose it is not surprising that the council has used the pretext of new legislation to rid itself of this turbulent independent force. Its attempt to do this last year was only reversed after the Bishop made an impassioned intervention.

I was the special adviser to the parliamentary committee that scrutinised the Bill that became the Care Act and am horrified that it is being used to justify the axing of the grant.

There is much in the Care Act that is good, but the cynics have argued that the Act is part of the government’s attack on public services. I had hoped that this was not so, but we are now seeing a Tory council using it as a justification for just such a purpose.

As someone who lives in Hereford, the only public service that I can see thriving here is the food bank (charitable, of course).

This is a council that has cut everything except the grass and is now sullying an Act that could have been used to do good. It should be ashamed of itself.

PROF LUKE CLEMENTS Cardiff Law School