MORE than 100 York council workers face a bleak start to 2006 after it emerged that sweeping jobs cuts were unavoidable.

Today, union bosses reacted angrily to the news after the council's finance chief Simon Wiles warned the figure was the least number of jobs to face the axe.

Mr Wiles, the man who has to balance the books at the authority which employs 7,500 people, also said today council tax rises of five per cent were "unavoidable".

Council workers claimed they were told in the week of their work Christmas parties that their jobs could be at risk in the New Year. One worker, who did not want to be named, said: "It's not been very festive in many of our households because a lot of us are worried about our jobs.

"There's never a good time to learn your job is on the line, but at Christmas time it is terrible. People have had to live with this hanging over their heads over Christmas and New Year."

Heather McKenzie of the union Unison, which represents many council workers, said: "There are potential job cuts being made in departments across the board and people are obviously very concerned where these will be made.

"At the moment we are currently in the process of finding out exactly how many jobs could go and from where, but we already know that in children's services 16 jobs would be lost if one of York's two children's homes closes".

Last month the authority's leader, Coun Steve Galloway, told the Evening Press that the council was heading for another financial crisis after not receiving as much as it had hoped in funding from central government.

He warned that potentially, a rise of 7.5 per cent in council tax might be necessary.

Today, Coun Galloway said: "The scale of any job cuts we have to make will only be known when we have confirmation from central Government of whether we will get an extra £1.25 million of grant funding".

"We are currently making representations but we won't know if we have been successful until the end of this month and if we are successful the number of cuts we have to make will be greatly reduced. We expect to be able to make an announcement at the beginning of February for the final figure of how many jobs will have to be made."

Speaking about a potential council tax rise, Mr Wiles said that five per cent was the least that residents could expect.

He said: "The question is whether it will go up more than five per cent, and there will have to be very heavy cuts in services, or it goes up more than five per cent and service cuts would be less severe".

Precise details of where service and jobs cuts could occur will come out in the New Year when the heads of each department meet at each executive and advisory panel meeting this month and next.

A City of York Council spokeswoman said: "Some people in some areas did receive letters as part of the budget consultation process."

The spokeswoman added that these letters contained details about the whole budgetary process.

Updated: 12:20 Friday, January 06, 2006