PLANS to make Dorset County Council workers take 12 days’ unpaid leave a year could save 155 jobs, the council’s finance chief has said.

But a proposed package of cuts to staff terms and conditions – saving the council £4.3m from 2012 – has been slammed as “outrageous” by a union leader.

Chief financial officer Paul Kent spelled out the financial implications of a package of cuts to staff terms and conditions at a meeting of cabinet bosses yesterday.

“This is really looking at trying to spread the pain rather than seek further reductions in the number of staff. It’s an alternative to having to reduce the establishment by a further 155 posts,” he said.

Resources chief Cllr Spencer Flower backed the proposed changes as “the least worst option”.

“The changes to terms and conditions are a really positive approach to trying to sustain the services we would otherwise have to cut and the jobs we would otherwise have to lose,” he said. “On balance it’s a much better approach than losing 155 jobs or losing services the public might enjoy.”

But Pam Jefferies, branch secretary for the Dorset branch of Unison, said: “I think it’s outrageous that Dorset County Council’s staff are continually asked to pay for the country’s deficit when they have done nothing to cause the problem.

“The reduced leave equates to a pay cut. The reduction in pay for unsocial hours will affect the lower paid. It’s bad news all round for staff.”

She added that the proposals would not affect school staff – the majority of the council’s pay roll – but only council workers.

“It’s the 6,500 who are going to bear the brunt. That’s where the 500 job losses are coming from, where the pay cuts are coming from,” she said.

“I don’t think that any member of the county council’s staff should have their pay or terms and conditions cut because the government can’t manage the country’s finances.”

Cabinet bosses backed the proposals, which will go out for consultation among unions from January 24 to April 26.

Highways and transport chief Cllr Peter Finney said the proposals represented “the best way for staff to help themselves”.