UNION leaders have warned York council chiefs they could be endangering the welfare of their staff if planned cuts to child care and counselling services go ahead.

Unison's Peter Household spoke at a meeting of council leader Steve Galloway's advisory panel in the Guildhall last night against a proposed £26,000 cut to the child care, stress counselling and chaplaincy services currently available to the authority's 8,000 staff. The cuts form part of a planned £268,000 saving from the chief executive's department, with proposed savings of £6,000 by reducing a child care voucher scheme, and more than £8,000 by cutting stress counselling.

Mr Household said human resources facilities at City of York Council were already poorly resourced in comparison with other authorities of its size. He criticised a move to cut the chaplaincy service offered by the Rev Chris Cullwick, which currently costs the council £12,000 and provides, he said, an "invaluable" impartial service to staff, including grief counselling.

Mr Cullwick read a letter from the Barbican Centre's head of facilities, Shane Chalmers, detailing the positive affect the chaplaincy had had reducing staff sickness leave and time off due to stress.

Ruth Sherratt, trade union steward for the chief executive's department since 2001, said the work of the chaplaincy had been invaluable. She said she had asked the chaplain to sit in on groups where bullying and harassment had been reported, and his presence had had a positive affect on the staff.

"For a long time and through a change of three chaplains I have seen the enormous value that the chaplaincy brings to the City of York Council staff and to the city per se.

"The welfare of council staff is inextricably linked to the welfare of this community and anything which undermines one cannot but undermine the other," she said.

Coun Galloway said: "There are still a few days to go before we finalise all aspects of the budget and I would say that if we were to change any of our budget proposals we would need to understand what subsequent reductions are being suggested.

"There are no easy decisions in this. Against a background of having to find £17 million to balance this year's budget the effects on individual staff are much smaller than anyone could have envisaged four months ago."

Updated: 10:24 Tuesday, January 18, 2005