CASH offices in the Monmouthshire one-stop shops are to close with the loss of five jobs.

Monmouthshire County Council's budget includes a 50,000 cut in funding of the area budget from October 1, and this will mean the closure of all cash offices in the one-stop shops, resulting in two jobs going in Abergavenny, one each in Caldicot and Chepstow and one from the Central Monmouthshire team which covers the one-stop shops in Monmouth and Usk.

The cabinet has also decided to discontinue the benefit advice service which has succeeded in obtaining more than 800,000 unclaimed money for Monmouthshire people since April 2000, and this will result in more job losses.

Explaining the five job losses in the one-stop shops, the council's deputy leader Councillor Graham Down said: "With more and more people having bank accounts, the need for cash offices is diminishing and it is becoming increasingly expensive to handle cash. We will be looking at alternatives such as pay points at local shops or post offices which are more convenient for most people."

But the council's own housing department recently carried out a tenants' survey which showed that of the 70 per cent who responded, three quarters of them want to continue paying their rent at the cash offices in the one-stop shops.

The Bryn y Cwm area manager Dale Roberts said: "We will do everything in our power to work with those most affected by this change, and minimise the impact on staff and the public."

Councillor Verona Nelmes, a member of the Bryn y Cwm area committee said the decision to discontinue the benefit advice service would hit the elderly and vulnerable.