Half of the 3,500 CAB advice centres run by the Citizens Advice charity could close as the government continues to squeeze legal aid and other sources of funding. News of the possible cull comes as the government prepares to give CAB extra work following its ‘bonfire of the quangos’.

The role of the Consumer Focus watchdog and some tasks of the soon-to-be-merged Office of Fair Trading (OFT) and Competition Commission are expected to pass to CAB.

CAB is made up of 394 bureaux, each of which is a registered charity, giving advice from 3,500 locations across the UK. Its combined income was £179m in 2009/10, with the money coming from the Legal Services Commission (legal aid), local authorities, lottery funds, primary care trusts, charitable trusts, companies and individuals.

Citizens Advice chief executive Gillian Guy said that cuts to legal aid will have a devastating impact. ‘The overwhelming majority of frontline caseworkers say that it will be impossible to provide a specialist service, while over half say that it may be impossible to continue providing any advice service at all,’ she added.

Another CAB source told the Gazette that, although the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders (LASPO) Bill is still working its way through parliament, the charity believes that removing welfare advice from legal aid is a ‘done deal’.

The source said: ‘The government wants to have its cake and eat it. It expects CAB to plug the gaps, and yet it has starved us of funds to do the job. It’s as though government departments don’t talk to one another, with the Ministry of Justice slashing legal aid while the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) makes plans to get CAB to take on lots more work. It’s short-sighted, utter madness.’ He believes half of all CAB centres could shut.

A Law Society spokesman said: ‘With two key funding sources for CAB being squeezed - cuts to legal aid and local authorities - CAB cannot be expected to absorb the consumer champion roles of the soon-to-be-defunct Consumer Focus and the merged OFT and Competition Commission, especially when it is left with no choice but to cut its presence.

‘Consumers and vulnerable people risk being left without a voice by these cuts and without much-needed support and guidance. Surely this is not what the prime minister had in mind with his Big Society idea.’