OPPOSITION councillors are calling on Burnley's ruling coalition to pledge there will be no further cuts to the borough's citizens' advice service.

Last year Burnley District Citizens' Advice Service was hit with a £95,000 budget reduction, after having their funding slashed by the borough council.

And with another tight Town Hall budget anticipated, and another £660,000 worth of savings still to be found by the Liberal Democrat and Tory alliance, opposition councillors are seeking guarantees over hard-pressed services.

Coun Mark Townsend, deputy Labour leader, has filed a motion for tomorrow's (Wed) meeting of Burnley full council, calling on BDCAS's contribution to welfare rights work to be recognised.

His motion reads that: "This council recognises the work of BDCAS in supporting residents from all sections of the community when they are facing complex financial, legal and welfare issues.

"Despite financial pressures being placed on BDCAS in this financial year by this council, BDCAS has continued to deliver extremely high levels of customer satisfaction and they are to be congratulated for achieving this.

"To ensure the service continues at the required level... the executive be recommended, when considering the formulation of the budget, to include a level of grant funding in the 2008/09 financial year to allow BDCAS to continue to provide this valuable service at the same level."

Group leader Coun Andy Tatchell said he was aware that the budget will not be fully discussed officially until later in the financial year.

But he said that Labour wanted to establish a "marker" which would safeguard the advice service's work in future.

"We want to see if this can be adopted as a future policy of this council," he said.

BDCAS provides welfare rights and benefits advice throughout the week at a number of locations across the Burnley and Padiham areas.