A charity which offers advice to Wiltshire parents has been saved from closure, but its workforce is facing redundancy and reduced working hours.

Ask has accepted a new £120,000 contract by Wilt- shire Council to continue delivering its services, which amounts to a cut of 53 per cent.

The cuts mean chief executive Linda Cantillon-Guyatt will issue fresh redundancies, after already cutting the workforce from its previous 27 staff to 13.

The hours of the charity’s telephone advice line will also be cut, with the changes taking effect on July 1.

It will also stop providing advice on childcare – parents will instead have to contact the council. Trustees of Ask met last week to make their final decision.

Mrs Cantillon-Guyatt said: “The trustees felt that it was better to do something rather than nothing at all – we are still here and we can still continue to support parents.

“We won’t, however, have the same outreach into the community that we have up until now enjoyed.

“So we are on the lookout for any parents or others who feel they may be able to help us get the message about Ask out to the communities that we are delivering our services to.”

The two-year contract is a far cry from the previous £253,000-per-year the charity received.

The service was founded in 1994, funded by the county council.

Over the past year, it has dealt with 8,500 inquiries from parents through its helpline; 19 per cent of those were worried about finances and 50 per cent involved pre-school children.

The new contract was secured after a campaign by Ask and parents, which included an online petition.

Mrs Cantillon-Guyatt said: “After a well supported campaign driven by Ask and supported by service users and Wiltshire councillors Jon Hubbard and Mary Douglas, Wiltshire Council’s leader Jane Scott directly intervened to ensure that negotiations on a new contract were successfully concluded.

“We would like to thank all those who supported our campaign, especially those parents who offered personal testimony about the value of the service we provide.”