Chancellor George Osborne today promised £20m a year in new funding for the not-for-profit advice sector over the next two years. The sum was immediately and widely condemned as being not enough to replace shortfalls left by spending cuts.

The announcement, in today’s budget, makes available £20m in 2013-14, and again in 2014-15 to support the not-for-profit sector as it adapts to changes in the way it is funded.

A Law Society spokesman dismissed the extra funding as ‘simply not enough’.

He said: ‘Losses from social welfare legal aid (of £58m) and local authority funding decimates the business models for groups who make a vital contribution to civil society; £20m in the budget is a sticking plaster which won’t even stem the bleeding.'

Will Horwitz, spokesman for campaign group Justice for All campaign agreed, saying the money do not provide a long-term plan for the advice sector. He said: ‘£20m a year for just two years is not nearly enough to cover the £100m annual shortfall charity advice providers are facing.’

He said: ‘It is no substitute for legal aid, so we urge government to accept the amendment won in the House of Lords this month to keep legal aid for advice on welfare benefit appeals and reviews.’

Horwitz noted that, according to the government’s impact assessment, charities will lose £51m a year as a result of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders bill.

The budget speech also included announcements of regional pay variations for public sector workers and the introduction from tomorrow of a new stamp duty land tax rate of 7% for residential properties worth over £2m.