Birmingham’s five Citizens Advice Bureaux face closure after losing £600,000 in council funding, and 900 staff face redundancy nationally as the charity awaits news on central government funding.

Citizens Advice, the membership organisation for the country’s 394 bureaux, may be forced to cut jobs within a £87m programme providing debt advice in deprived communities. The government funding for the programme ends in March and the charity does not know if the contract will be renewed.

A Citizens Advice spokesman said the redundancies affected about 75 per cent of the staff employed on the programme.

Further, it has been reported that Birmingham’s five Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB) offices face closure next month after the council cut £600,000 in funding. Some 45 jobs are at risk.

The council funding ends on 31 March and a replacement Birmingham City Council fund will not be available until August at the earliest. 

Birmingham City Council said it had always warned the Birmingham CAB not to rely on council funding.

Yvonne Davis, chief executive of the CAB, said the charity got five times the council funding from other sources such as Macmillan Cancer Care and the Royal British Legion, but it still relied on the city council for 20 per cent of its funding.