TOWN councillors in Wellington have agreed to award a local counselling service up to twice the amount of money it asked for in a grant request.

They decided to offer an annual £12,000, three-year service level agreement (SLA) to Wellington Community Counselling at their latest monthly meeting.

An SLA is where the council enters into a partnership with an organisation to deliver a service over a period of time rather making a one-off grant to support it.

The community interest company had asked for a grant of £6,000, the same amount it received last year, to support its work in providing free and low-cost counselling to local children and adults. It has also been providing free counselling to key workers during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Cllr Andrew Govier supported the higher sum and the SLA with six-monthly reviews on how the service was being delivered, which he said would provide the counselling organisation with stability.

He said: “I think we should be more ambitious and look to increase the level of funding we are giving them. A lot of businesses are struggling, we know some of our biggest employers are potentially laying people off or have laid people off, and I think there is going to be increased need for this.”

Cllr Govier said he hoped the council funding would draw in money from other sources as a lot of organisations were making referrals to community counselling but not helping to fund it, which could be a challenge in the future.

Deputy Mayor Cllr Mark Lithgow said the Wellington counselling service was a valuable, proven resource known to local doctors and the headteachers of local schools. Nearly all the money the council gave would be spent on clients and it would probably be released in instalments, so little risk was attached.

He said: “The people they are servicing are people who have nowhere else to turn – their families are in crisis and they are about the only people out there offering this service within Wellington. The money given them will be spent within Wellington and we desperately need to support this group.”

Cllr Lithgow added that the council supported the elderly through WHERE and young people through the youth service, and supporting the counselling service would help it to be known as a caring, consistent authority.

Cllr Mike McGuffie supported the application and suggested £12,000 funding was roughly appropriate and hoped that going forward the council funding could be matched by others.

Cllr James Hunt said the counselling service had asked for a grant of £6,000 and provided a costed programme of work. He added: “I don’t know how we as a council can say, ‘here you go, here’s some extra money’, work out how you’re going to spend it.” Cllr Hunt said he had ‘grave concerns’ how such spending would be viewed by an auditor.