YORK needs to up the number of advice sessions to help people hit by the roll out of Universal Credit, Labour campaigners say.

City councillors from the party are pushing for extra funding for Citizens Advice York (CAY), so it can restart sessions which have had to stop.

The group’s deputy leader Cllr Stuart Barnes, who will propose a motion to council this Thursday, said experience elsewhere showed that UC would cause problems.

CAY reduced its advice sessions from four to two days in April following a loss of project funding, and still has to close some sessions early because it cannot meet demand.

Labour’s motion calls for extra funding from the council to reinstate the two sessions, and it proposes making the York Financial Assistance Scheme – for those in desperate financial circumstances - more visible and accessible through things like online applications.