The Morrison government has extended emergency three-month funding contracts to 16 more financial counselling, legal aid and charity groups to keep them open over the Christmas holiday period after it cut their funding with little warning.

The move was made without fanfare, logged quietly on the Department of Social Services website on Wednesday evening.

It comes as the social services minister, Paul Fletcher, faces continued criticism for his department’s decision to overhaul funding arrangements for key community services groups in the lead-up to Christmas.

In some cases, barely two months’ notice has been given to groups to prepare for dramatic cuts in the new year – a time of year when thousands of Australian families have traditionally needed more emergency assistance and financial counselling.

On Wednesday evening, the Department of Social Services (DSS) released a document on its website saying it would extend emergency three-month funding contracts – covering the period 1 January 2019 to 31 March 2019 – to 16 organisations that had lost their funding in the latest round of grants:

FMC Relationship Services

EACH

Uniting (Victoria and Tasmania) Limited

VincentCare Victoria

Odyssey House, Victoria

Mallee Family Care Inc

Anglicare SA Ltd

Centacare Catholic Country SA Ltd

The Trustee for The Salvation Army (NSW) Property Trust

Southern Youth and Family Services Limited

Vietnamese Community in Australia NSW Chapter Inc

The Uniting Church in Australia Property Trust (Q.)

C Q Financial Counselling Association Inc.

Prisoners’ Legal Service Inc

Agencies for South West Accommodation Inc.

CentreCare Incorporated

Neither the government nor the department has drawn attention to the funding extensions. When asked about the DSS decision, a spokesman for Fletcher said:

“The government is providing $62m under the financial counselling and financial capability grants to 42 organisations across Australia over 4.5 years, commencing 1 January 2019.

“Given the timing of the grant round, and the workload that these organisations are experiencing leading up to Christmas, a three-month extension of current funding arrangements will be provided to 16 of these organisations.”

The move comes in a trying week for the government.

On Monday, after Guardian Australia reported that Australia’s largest food charity, Foodbank, was being asked absorb an annual funding cut of $323,000, starting on 1 January 2019, public anger saw the government restore the funding within 24 hours.

On Wednesday, when it was revealed the government’s decision to end federal funding to the Financial Rights Legal Centre and the Consumer Action Law Centre had put both services in jeopardy, the DSS put a notice on its website on Wednesday evening, confirming both services would have their funding arrangements extended for another 12 months, until 31 December 2019.

Fiona Guthrie from Financial Counselling Australia said she was thankful for the funding certainty but she hoped the experience would prove a catalyst for policymakers to overhaul the current funding arrangements.

“This ad hoc arrangement between federal and state governments for financial counselling just has to stop,” Guthrie said on Friday. “It’s not just with the national debt helpline, it’s across the board for the whole sector.

“We need state governments and the federal government to come together … they don’t even really coordinate, they duplicate, they defund, there are so many ways to do it better.”

Gerard Brody, the chief executive of the Consumer Action Law Centre, said the sector would benefit greatly from a “national partnership agreement” like that which exists in other sectors, such as legal assistance.

“That sort of approach would make a lot more sense in financial counselling, so there’s a common sense and logical way to distributing funding,” he said. “We’d like to see the federal government advance that sort of funding arrangement over the next 12 months.”

Jenny McAllister, the shadow assistant minister for families and communities, said Fletcher had “completely bungled” the implementation of the grants and had to spend the week patching holes in his own program.

“This chaotic approach suggests the minister doesn’t know or he doesn’t care about the services delivered by his portfolio,” she said. “Mr Fletcher needs to explain how this mess came about in the first place and how he is going to clean it up.”