The centre has been operating for 35 years, running support groups for women experiencing domestic violence or going through divorce, as well as offering free personal development courses and weekly information sessions on everything from returning to work to financial literacy.

A spokesman for Minister for Women Joy Burch confirmed the Civic premises would close, but said the free services would still be offered by other government and community organisations, including Children and Family Centres, First Point and Multicultural Women's Advocacy Inc.

"This change is about reducing duplication in services while providing better outreach so that women have better access to our programs and services," he said.

"This will be achieved in part by moving from a model where WiRC and its programs were based in one location to one where these services are based in the community."

The centre employs five people, who will be deployed across the Community Services Directorate.

"We are consulting with WiRC staff and will be consulting with the women's sector to obtain input for the design of a new service model for the provision of services to women," the spokesman said.

"It is not clear at this time how services will be delivered as we are keen to preserve the same level of services but to make them more accessible throughout Canberra for vulnerable women."

Rhian Williams, an expert in dispute resolution who occasionally delivers courses to women through the centre, says it is an important resource that often fosters "a deep sense of social connection" among women and can generate huge benefits to the community economically.

"If they want to get rid of the centre, at the very least they should do some cost-benefit

analysis to determine the value of the service," she said.

"As I understand it, [there's been no] evaluation as to whether what's proposed will actually be better than what is. It's making decisions on the run without knowing that they're actually going to deliver anything better.

"If they haven't determined how they're going to do it … it would make sense to maintain the service as part of the transition so in fact there's a seamless handover."

The centre runs a telephone support service that is the point of information to connect women to the services they need, with the concentration of knowledge allowing additional community needs to be identified.

"It's important to make sure there are services that connect well for people, and particularly women … because when women are disadvantaged, their children are disadvantaged and that begets its own cycle of further disadvantage," Ms Williams said.

Figures show 70 per cent of staff interaction at the centre was by phone or email in the 2012-13 financial year, with 398 face-to-face visits, which the government says it would like to increase by moving the services "into an increased range of areas".

"There's a lot of thinking these days that you can access everything over the internet, but a centre that allows women to come in, sit down, talk to someone in person about what's going on with them and do so in an environment that's supportive makes an enormous difference," she said.