AN ADVICE charity is getting £12,000 in extra City of York Council funding so it can reverse cuts to drop-in sessions.

Citizens Advice York (CAY) has had to turn as many as 20 to 30 people a day away from free advice sessions in the city centre, as volunteer advisors struggled to keep up with the number of people needing help.

The supply problem arose after CAY had to stop half of its four weekly sessions, because funding ran out.

This week a senior councillor agreed to hand over £12,000 so the service can go back up to four days a week.

Cllr Carol Runciman signed off the decision after a 1770-name petition was presented by Labour’s Cllr Neil Barnes.

Cllr Barnes said the advice sessions would be more important than ever as Universal Credit is rolled out in York. While they welcome the £12,000, which will plug the funding gap for six months, he said they are still worried about how CAY will run the services people need in the longer term.

John Short, chairman of the charity’s trustees, said that as a local organisation it relied entirely on grants and donations.

The drop-in service at West Offices in the city centre is “at the heart of what we do”, he said, with the volunteer advisors giving people life-changing help and often dealing with people who need money to buy food that day, or help finding a place to sleep that night.

Because it is run by volunteers, the service offers outstanding value for money, he said, but two days is simply not enough to meet the demand.

As well as the £12,000 needed to restore the four-day-a-week service, CAY already faces a £20,000 shortfall in funding its existing services and has to pay those costs out of its own scarce reserves.

Mr Short said overhead costs had already been cut considerably, but the finances will have to be considered when discussions begin over its base £122,000 a year funding from the council.