A year ago, when I reported on cuts to a mental health drop-in service in Glasgow, the council told me it wasn't needed because another charity, Glasgow Association for Mental Health, could help people affected.

Now GAMH has learned that its budget has been cut, by 40%, in part because of 'duplication' between what it provides and what is on offer from another charity Carr Gomm.

But I'm not sure duplication is really the issue. That is only one of the concerns outlined in a review of mental health services by social care director David Williams.

Another is the implication that the service is ineffective. The paper skirts around this by talking about the need for clear outcomes and early intervention, and the suggestion that GAMH needs to achieve 'clear goals within reasonable timetables'.

A council spokesman put it more succinctly. "A large number of people have been using the GAMH service at a low level for a number of years," he said.

Is that a criticism? It certainly seems true. I sat down recently with a number of the charity's clients and they talked about being in the depths of despair, unable to go out, and how meeting others in a similar situation at a GAMH group had given them hope, a social circle. "GAMH opened up my world", as army veteran Peter Leckie put it. Many continued to have significant mental health problems and continued to look to the charity for essential support.

The council's view is that the service should operate more like the re-ablement work which has spread across Scotland to help elderly hospital patients return to active life at home, after a health crisis such as a fall, for example.

But I'm not convinced it is realistic to see mental health problems in the same way. If GAMH could readily 'cure' people with mental health problems, they would be psychiatrists - and exceptional ones at that. But mental health conditions can be long term and a quick fix isn't always possible.

Glasgow City Council says that if its new model doesn't work for a particular person they won't be abandoned, and can come back to the service again. But I think this decisions raises big questions about the nature of social work support - which the council now thinks should be transitory, leading to rehabilitation and recuperation.

Some would say it is it a good thing that groups like GAMH provided ongoing support, available when people need it, for as long as they need it. That view, in Glasgow at least, now appears to be old-fashioned.