COUNCIL staff have been asked to take unpaid holiday to ward off more redundancies.

Blackburn with Darwen Council is poised to agree spending cuts of £29mililon, leading to 1,000 job losses. A total of 500 are set to be compulsory redundancies, bosses say.

Now the workforce has been told that taking fours days off, every year for the next three years would help avoid a further 50 to 100 redundancies.

The £4.5million savings have already been included as part of the budget cuts proposals, to be agreed on Monday night. Now unions are balloting their members on whether to accept the new terms and conditions.

Unison rep Gareth Roscoe said: ”We are not in the business of lessening terms and conditions, but if this is not agreed there will be more redundancies, which will then have an impact on services.”

Council staff are currently in a two-year pay freeze, a real-terms cut taking inflation into account, and the proposed changes would be equivalent to a 1.5per cent pay cut, Mr Roscoe said.

He added: “There are obviously some people who aren’t happy. But most would rather preserve their jobs.

“It’s heartening how much staff are sticking together.”

Unions are not making a recommendation as to how their members should vote. If the measure is rejected, the council will have the option of imposing it regardless and risking further action.

The council’s chief executive Graham Burgess said the proposals would help bridge a £33million funding gap.

Mr Burgess, chief executive, said the ‘workforce review’ would avoid an estimated 50 full-time, or 80 to 100 part-time job losses.

He added: “The council will need to look at other options for savings of approximately £1million over the next three years if union members vote against it.”