Monmouthshire County Council has had the greenlight from three of the four citizen's advice bureaux in the county to merge the services for more effective management.

The bureaux in Abergavenny, Caldicot and Chepstow have finally come around to approve the merger, following the first correspondence with the chair of the Merger Steering Committee in March this year.

At the moment they are all individual services that deal with their specific towns. The hope from the council is that by merging these services it will give a more effective county-wide service for all concerned.

There has been a recognised and evidenced need across the county for advice and advocacy services and it has been the preferred option from the county council for the four to merge into one single legal entity.

But Monmouth centre has abstained from joining in the merger, and at this month's cabinet meeting, it was approved that the merger of the three bureaux should go ahead, leaving Monmouth to be the only individually run centre in the county.

Following the approval from cabinet, the council expects to have the newly linked services up and running by December 2013.