WELLINGTON Town Council is to forge a closer three-year working relationship with the Citizens Advice Bureau.

The CAB holds two sessions at 28 Fore Street in Wellington – where the town council is based – between 10am and 1pm on Mondays and Thursdays each week for people wanting advice on a huge range of topics.

The council had received a grant application for up to £2,900 from Taunton and District CAB which would fund its outreach service in Wellington for another 12 months.

It supports the CAB each year but to give the charity a more long-term secure future for its work in Wellington the council wants to enter into a Service Level Agreement (SLA).

Only last month the council agreed to set up an SLA?with WHERE (Westcountry Health Education and Research Enterprise) in Wellington that would award the centre £2,000 a year for the next three years.

Now the council is looking at providing an SLA with the CAB of £3,000 a year over the same three-year period.

Cllr Andrew Govier, speaking at the town council’s finance meeting, said: “The CAB provides an excellent service in Wellington and it seems to be getting busier and busier down there.

“The SLA would be the best route to go down as we will be able to regularly monitor it and able to adjust things.”

Town clerk Greg Dyke explained to members that the SLA could allow the council to receive reports from CAB about new debt, benefits, housing and employment cases, and find out more about its work including the number of people receiving support, the value of benefits secured, debts written off, homelessness avoided and employment disputes settled.

But Cllr Bob Bowrah, speaking at the later full council meeting,

said: “We will be opening up a Pandora’s Box by thinking of having another SLA. I think the CAB should be given a grant each year on merit.”

Cllr Govier said he ‘could not disagree more’ with his council colleague and again emphasised that the CAB was very well used in Wellington.

“It’s really important that we support the CAB by having a three-year SLA,” he said. “We’ll be able to monitor it along the way rather than have just a snapshot once a year when it applies for a grant.”

Cllr Marcus Barr added: “As long as the CAB stays in Wellington I will support this – I know it does some fantastic work.”

Cllr John Thorne said: “The CAB isn’t going to stop doing what it does because its workload here continues to grow.

“The CAB will continue to ask for grants but with an SLA in place instead we’ll be able to monitor it.”