THE outreach worker who helps people in the Okehampton area to access unclaimed benefits could have her job saved.
In what looks like an eleventh-hour reprieve, Devon County Council has announced a multi-million pound investment package for the voluntary and community sector.
The move comes just weeks after the announcement of social service cutbacks in outreach work which affected the post hosted by Okehampton Citizens Advice Bureau.
An alternative source of funding is needed to allow the outreach worker to continue helping disabled and elderly people claim benefits to which they are entitled.
Sue Bizley, who has held the post in Okehampton for the last seven-and-a-half years, has brought £164,000 into the community in benefits since November 2000.
Mrs Bizley's contract is set to expire in March, but the new funding package to help Devon CAB's and welfare benefit take-up could ensure the future of the outreach project, which costs £16,000 a year.
However, discussions are continuing on how the money should be allocated and whether the county council will concentrate resources on an individual or network support basis.
The package worth over £800,000, will be focussed on key areas of work such as helping implement the government's policy to increase benefit take-up.
The package was put forward by the county council's executive committee as funding priorities for the coming year were identified.
The package includes £200,000 to ensure the survival of local Volunteer Bureaux and Council's for Voluntary Service and £336,000 to maintain local advice work through the Citizen's Advice Bureaux network.
An additional £100,000 has been set aside to fund campaigns and schemes to promote the take up of welfare benefits. It is estimated that £50-million of benefits goes unclaimed in Devon every year.
West Devon and Torridge MP John Burnett, who pressed for the post to be saved, said the outreach project job was vitally important for people in the area, enabling them to get benefits and in some cases get back into work.
'I am very pleased the county council is reconsidering and I am cautiously optimistic that they will reverse the decision,' said Mr Burnett.
Okehampton CAB branch manager Barbara Osborne was also remaining cautious as time was running out for the outreach project to be saved.
'We have two weeks before Sue is made redundant but eleventh-hour reprieves are not totally unheard of,' she said.
'There does not appear to be very much joined-up thinking when social services cancels the very post which brings such benefits into the area, yet with another breath Devon County Council plans to put together a benefits take-up campaign.'
She said the CAB was currently seeking pledges of funding from local organisations and businesses to try and extend the post for another year while alternative long-term funding could be found.
'We are asking for pledges to be in by March 31 so we can start the new financial year with some kind of hope,' she added.
A county council spokesman said the package would secure the core service of the CAB and ensure the valuable work they do was not going to be lost.
In addition to the financial package, the council is also pledging to help groups and projects identify alternative funding sources and continue to lobby Government over the future of social services and the voluntary sector.
The county council also says it will involve the voluntary sector more in planning for the longer term future and work closely with other agencies at a local level to maximise all available funding.
Cllr Mike Knight, executive member with responsibility for community planning, said the decision to find resources indicated how important the county council considered the voluntary sector to be.
'We recognise the voluntary sector is a key cornerstone of our communities and we want to help protect and develop the sector.'
The recommendations of the executive committee are expected to be approved by the full council when it meets today (Thursday).