A NEW body offering support for people affected by welfare reforms and suffering from financial stress and poverty across Cornwall, has been created thanks to a generous cash boost from the Big Lottery Fund.

The East Cornwall Citizens Advice Bureau is among 20 organisations that will make up the Cornwall Advice Network (CAN).

The director of the Big Lottery Fund said the grant could help provide a lifeline for people and communities most in need.

The cash boost of £276,414 has enabled the creation of CAN, which aims to increase the co-ordination of advice services across Cornwall, to improve their capacity and efficiency in order to respond to increasing demand and to improve the long-term sustainability of services as a whole.

The project will also work to improve promotion of services to those most in need, including financial capability training, increased sharing of information between agencies, and co-ordination with a range of agencies to improve multi-agency referrals.

As well as the East Cornwall CAB, other organisations in the Cornwall Advice Network include CAB Cornwall, Age UK Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly, Community Energy Plus, Disability Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Ltd, Independent Futures, Pre-school Learning Alliance, Cornwall Youth Work Partnership, United Response, WILD Young Parents Project, Volunteer Cornwall, Cornwall Rural Community Council and a number of others.

The Cornwall Advice Network will act as a co-operative of advice providers in Cornwall, and will increase capacity among agencies and therefore increase access to the range of advice services available.

The funding is part of a £67-million investment across England from the Big Lottery Fund's Advice Services Transition Fund, supported by the cabinet office, to transform free advice services across the country.

Dharmendra Kanani, Big Lottery Fund director for England, said: 'Getting the right advice at the right time can be a lifeline for people and communities most in need.

'Current services are struggling to keep up with increasing demand and the greater complexity in the types of problems people are facing.

'This timely funding demonstrates the enormous value that BIG can bring by offering support to help local partnerships of advice providers to come together to develop new ways of working, fit for the 21st century.

'Times are tough for advice providers and for people at the thin end of the wedge. This is a chance to invest in a much needed transformation of services so that they an adapt, respond to need and survive.'