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SUPPORT workers have been pushed to breaking point as Scots hammered by benefit cuts flood them with pleas for help.

Citizens Advice Scotland have revealed that 780 victims of the Con-Dem welfare axe seek their support every day.

Chief executive Margaret Lynch said overstretched staff are struggling to keep up as more and more elderly, disabled and vulnerable people are plunged into poverty.

A new report, Voices from the Frontline, reveals that:

The number of benefit issues dealt with by CAS has increased by 39 per cent since 2007 – that’s 50,000 a year.

The number of people needing help to fight benefit cuts through the tribunal service has more than double since the Tories

were returned to power.

In the first nine months of 2012, CAS advised on over 47,000 new issues relating to claiming benefits.

In 2011-12, CAS helped clients complete nearly 20,000 applications and forms related to benefits.

The Coalition Government have tried to win support for their cuts by insisting they’re targeted at benefit scroungers.

But a series of hard-hitting exclusives in the Daily Record have shown the measures are hitting the poor, needy and vulnerable hardest.

Lynch said: “Our advisers see first-hand the real and negative impact changes over the past few years are having – and it is set to get very much worse.

“With further changes due to start biting in 2013, we expect demand for benefit advice to increase even further along with an increased need for other areas of advice such as debt, housing and budgeting.

“This increase in casework is of course having a knock-on effect on the ability of our

service to help our clients. We

are already at breaking point so desperately need to be adequately resourced to enable us to help those who need it most.

“The evidence we’re publishing shows who is being hit hardest and it includes thousands who are genuinely sick, disabled and vulnerable and deserve support.

“Current policies don’t just hit the individual claimant but can have a huge effect on children and others being cared for.

“The UK Government must heed this evidence and question whether they really want to continue on a track of devastating reforms which can only damage more lives.”

James's story: Eat or heat

JAMES MILLAR has already beaten the benefit axemen twice after they tried to plunge him into poverty.

But Con-Dem cuts mean the ex-NHS cleaning supervisor now faces a third tribunal just to get enough money to eat.

(Image: Paul Chappells/Daily Record)

He suffered a serious neck injury when he slipped while helping move a bed at Gartnavel Hospital in Glasgow in 2007.

He damaged three vertebrae and now struggles to walk.

Since then, James has been assessed as fit for work three times against medical advice.

With the help of CAS, he has twice shown he has a legitimate need for help by taking his case to tribunal – and now he faces a third legal fight after his benefits were stopped again.

James, 58, who is trying to scrape by on £57 a week, feels persecuted by the Government.

He said: “The stress is really getting to me. If it wasn’t for the Citizens Advice I don’t know how I would have coped.

“In weather like we are having now, I don’t have enough money to eat and heat my home.”