Union: 3000 jobs will go with cuts from cou cil budgets

MORE than 3000 jobs will be axed and £300million cut from council budgets, a union warned yesterday.

Public service union Unison said council education and social work departments would be hardest hit.

Unison general secretary Dave Prentis said research has uncovered planned cuts of £300million across local government with more than 3000 jobs at risk. He said: "No school cleaner gambled billions on the stock exchange.

"None of them created this recession. Why should they be expected to pay for it?" A spokesman for finance secretary John Swinney said: "The spending cuts are coming from Labour at Westminster.

"And while councils are autonomous bodies responsible for making their own budget decisions, the SNP Scottish government has reversed the decline in their share of the overall Scottish budget."