More jobs are to go at Kirklees Citizens’ Advice Bureau following cuts in government funding.

Chief executive Nick Whittingham said there would be job losses among the 45 paid staff working at Kirklees CAB’s offices in Huddersfield and Dewsbury, but said he could not confirm numbers until the current budget had been finalised at the end of this month.

But Almondbury man, Peter Millen, one of 40 volunteer advisers working for Kirklees CAB, said he would be resigning in protest at the cuts once he had honoured appointments booked with clients next Tuesday.

Citizens Advice Bureau volunteer Peter Millen
Citizens Advice Bureau volunteer Peter Millen

He said he understood that 1.5 paid posts were to go from CAB’s Brook Street office in Huddersfield and two posts would be lost at its Wakefield Road site in Dewsbury while managers had agreed to give up one day a week.

In a letter to Mr Whittingham, he said: “As you know, my view is that there remained in Huddersfield a small core of totally professional, utterly committed, expert staff on whose knowledge and experience – as a volunteer – I am totally dependent if I am to safely and usefully help clients.”

He said the office was working at “full stretch” and that the loss of “utterly indispensable” frontline staff meant “an already struggling facility for the people of Huddersfield is further, desperately weakened.”

Mr Millen said: “If the CAB really cannot find a use for the very gifted, expert professionals now being sacked or under-employed, I cannot begin to see how a volunteer like myself, an amateur, can be an adequate substitute, and I am resigning in protest.”

Nick Whittingham, Chief executive at Kirklees Citizens Advice & Law Centre
Nick Whittingham, Chief executive at Kirklees Citizens Advice & Law Centre

Mr Whittingham said: “There are ongoing government cuts to services across the board and we are going to need to make some efficiency savings. We don’t envisage any substantial reduction in the services we provide. We will lose some staff but I don’t think that will impact on the service.”

He said: “We are increasingly looking at all sorts of funding streams and we have a number of things in the pipeline which may not come through until later in the year.”

The latest cuts follow the loss of eight staff two years ago at Kirklees CAB – now called Kirklees Citizens’ Advice and Law Centre – after funding from Kirklees Council was cut by half.

They also come at a time of rising demand for CAB’s advice services, particularly in the area of benefits due to the roll-out of Universal Credit and people moving from Disability Living Allowance to the new Personal Independence Payment system.