THE harsh impact of swingeing spending cuts was felt in West Somerset this week as the future of a charity which offers vital support to voluntary and community groups across the district came under threat.

Engage, the local branch of the Council for Voluntary Service, could be left without any grant aid in the coming financial year - at a time when Prime Minister David Cameron's 'Big Society' programme envisages a greater role for the voluntary and community sector.

Somerset County Council is proposing to end the infrastructure funding provided to all five Council for Voluntary Service branches in the county.

Although West Somerset's share of the £63,000 pot is around £8,200, a further £5,000 - which comes via the county council from the Somerset Primary Care Trust - is also likely to end.

In addition, a three-year Government grant which has helped Engage 'upskill' and brought in almost £34,000 this year will run dry at the end of March.

And Engage also fears that public sector cutbacks will mean the end of an annual contribution of £3,000 from West Somerset Council.

The charity has already been using its reserves to keep its volunteer centre in Friday Street open, but if the county council cuts go ahead it will close at the end of December.

Engage chief executive officer Katrina Midgley said the centre's work would be transferred to the charity's headquarters in Alcombe Village Hall, which it moved into just over a year ago.

"The loss of funding from the county council would be the nail in the coffin for a separate volunteer centre," she said.

"We could be facing a total lack of grants to keep everything running next year - it's an incredibly serious situation.

"The viability of the organisation has to be considered - we desperately want to keep going but we can't do that on our reserves alone.

"We may not be able to offer the same level of support and closure is a real possibility."

Mrs Midgley said that although the county council grant was relatively small, it lent credibility to Engage when it was trying to drawn down other funding.

"A lot of grant-giving bodies would question our ability if we cannot attract local authority funding," she said.

As well as the volunteer centre, Engage also runs a furniture re-use project, involving the collection of unwanted furniture and household appliances which low income families can then buy at low prices.

The project generates around £40,000 a year and is largely self-financing.

The charity also co-ordinates a social car scheme, providing subsidised journeys for trips to doctors' surgeries, shopping or to visit friends and family.

Other services include the publication of a quarterly newsletter for key partners and players in the voluntary and community sector, running training sessions and steering the West Somerset Voluntary Sector Forum, which meets five times a year.

Engage also stages an annual community conference and as well as offering help and advice to groups on issues ranging from governance to fundraising, represents the wider views and needs of the voluntary sector to strategic partners in the statutory and public sectors.

The organisation has six part-time paid staff and just under a dozen volunteers, as well as a development worker - Jan Ross - who is funded through a Big Lottery grant until August next year.

Mrs Ross, whose work involves supporting and developing groups and helping them to attract grants, has already drawn down more than £309,000 of funding for local organisations since taking up the post just a year ago, with an additional £417,000 in the pipeline.

Mrs Midgely said the CVS had existed in West Somerset since 1985 and she and her colleagues were not prepared to see it disappear without a fight.

Engage held an emergency meeting with Somerset's other CVS branches on Tuesday and representatives from all five will be going to the county council's cabinet meeting on Monday, at which the raft of cutbacks in a range of services announced late last week will be debated.

"We are formulating questions for councillors, lobbying our MPs and calling on all community and voluntary organisations to support us," said Mrs Midgley.

"We want the council to adjourn this and to think again. By its own admission in the papers that are going to Monday's meeting, ending this funding will have an impact on the ability to deliver the Big Society outcomes.

"We are not going to give up easily - we have to make the council change its mind."