ADVICE agency Business Link Kent has axed four jobs, including the editor of its news magazine, in a drive to reduce the cost of support services.

It has teamed up with five other business links in the south east to share the cost of editorial, marketing, IT and administration.

But the Government-backed Business Link has countered any suggestion that it is cutting services by saying that it has recently taken on eight extra advisers.

The jobs being lost include that of the editor of Business Works, the Link’s newsletter, Roz Glick, and staff in IT and web development.

Ms Glick, well known to business people across the county for her editorial and marketing work over many years, is one of the casualties of this shift to central sourcing.

"These jobs will be done on a regional basis and we will share costs," said Link marketing director Tony Buddin. There was no longer any need for a printed publication.

"This is part of the e-environment, we’re moving away from hard copy. More people are responding to emails rather than hard copy. The world has changed."

He added: "It helps us to be more efficient and the money saved by sharing back office services is paying for additional advisers."

Mr Buddin said the agency’s workforce had expanded by 12 overall in the past four months. "We are very much a growing business with a substantial increase in the number of companies that we can help."

The agency, based at Kings Hill, West Malling, continues to hold high-profile events, many attended by hundreds of business people from across the county eager to hear celebrity and other motivational speakers.

However, earlier this year BLK withdrew from its traditional role of providing training courses, a task it inherited from Kent Chamber of Commerce after its collapse in the late 1990s.