TRADE unionists opposed to the council's future shape plans gathered outside Barnet Town Hall on Wednesday.

Members of Unison, the GMB, the National Union of Teachers (NUT) the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) and the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) who are all members of the Barnet Trades Council were at the protest in The Burroughs.

The members say they are concerned the plans to provide a no-frills style “EasyCouncil”, where residents would pay extra for some services, will mean job cuts and worse services for users.

“Although it claims to be for services, I think they are going to be cutting services for everybody,” said Kathy Newman, a year six teacher at Colindale Primary School in Poolsford Road, who was with her union the NUT.

“It will be the most needy children who will miss out, for example I think they will cut teaching assistants who are able to provide extra reading help.”

Members of the council's street cleaning services were also concerned their jobs would be contracted out under the plans.

GMB convener Paul Coles said: “A lot of the guys are here from environmental services. People are worried about their jobs and that the fact that the service will go out to private tender which will mean worse conditions for them.”

He said his union was also concerned that “very good” initial consultation with staff had gone down to almost nothing.

Other protesters complained the council had brought forward the decision by a week without telling staff about the change.

However talking about the plans, the second phase of which was approved for implementation by members of Wednesday's cabinet meeting, the council's chief executive Nick Walkley said that council workers would be involved.

He proposed a representative staff panel which would look at Future Shaping ideas and said trade union members would sit on it.

“This is a major change and it's understandable that this is raising significant concerns,” he said.

“But it's not our intention to concoct a parallel world, it's critically important that they will be involved, I want to make that crystal clear,” he said.

He also proposed that ideas would be tested in small trials to make sure they worked before being rolled out across the council.