INCREASINGLY more York people in work are getting into financial difficulties while some are cutting back on food and fuel to meet bills, York and District Citizens' Advice Bureau heard at its annual meeting.

People on benefits were being taken off them for "crazy reasons" and changes to benefits and the removal of council tax relief were causing hardships.

The 40 people at the Priory Street Centre, Priory Street, York, also heard two senior officers of York charities call for the Castlegate Centre for young people to stay open.

In his last week at the bureau, chief executive George Vickers said: "We have got the situation where people in work are increasingly struggling for money. More and more people are in work, trying to get on with their lives and find they are struggling to pay their bills."

In the annual review, he wrote that this was because they didn't earn enough, and some people in the city were cutting back on food and fuel to meet council tax bills.

At the meeting, Mr Vickers said that since he became chief executive in 2010, the bureau had made major changes to how it operated.

These were designed to make it easier for people in work to contact CAB and to meet its vastly increased workload in the four years since the Coalition Government introduced what he called "the biggest public spending cuts we have ever seen in this country".

He described how changes in the benefit system meant that sometimes people on benefits were losing them for "crazy reasons".

Guest speaker, Alyson Scott, chief executive officer of mental health charity York Mind, said trying to navigate their way through the benefit system changes was having a big impact on the well-being of people with mental health problems.

Both officers strongly opposed the proposed Castlegate Centre closure.

The meeting began with presentations to the bureau's social policy co-ordinator Becky Jeffrey for spearheading the work that won it the "Campaigning CAB of 2014" award from the national CAB organisation, and to Mr Vickers, who leaves on Friday to go to the Orkney Islands.

Michael Sturge, who retired as chair of the board of trustees in March 2014, also received a presentation. He is succeeded by Adrian Widdowson, who had been treasurer and who was re-elected as trustee.

Two people co-opted onto the board during the year were also re-elected as trustees; accountant Chris Ward who takes over as treasurer, and Cllr Julie Gunnell.