the much-praised "campus cops" are under threat as councils and police look for savings.

East Renfrewshire has become the latest Scottish local authority to warn it may axe funding for school-based officers as budgets are squeezed.

The suburban council pioneered the scheme eight years ago but now hopes Police Scotland will pick up the bill, despite the force signalling it has its own financial woes.

East Renfrewshire, which has also suggested volunteers should staff its libraries as part of its attempt to cut costs, follows Edinburgh, which has warned of cuts to campus officers and Inverclyde, which has already dropped them.

The council said: "We believe this service has played an important role in prevention and early intervention in a number of our schools and intend to work with Police Scotland to maintain this service, even at a reduced level."

Campus officers met some resistance when they were introduced in East Renfrewshire in 2006, after being piloted in Aberdeen, because teachers and parents feared the stigma of officers in school corridors.

However, many senior officers and educators believe they have made a huge impact on relations between young people and police.

The scheme, inspired by Denmark, helps police and schools deal with issues from internet safety to bullying and drugs and has won many plaudits.

However, like several other innovations made during the years of high spending, such as the expansion of CCTV, it was never core business for police or schools and so is funded under a series of ad-hoc arrangements.

East Renfrewshire believes it can save £160,000 a year by ­pulling the plug on five officers in its schools.

The Violence Reduction Unit (VRU), the former Strathclyde Police body now operating across Scotland, championed campus officers.

Its director, Karyn McCluskey, stressed the huge role such men and women play in schools. She said: "I am really saddened by the potential loss of the campus officers.

"They have been hugely successful and contributed to keeping young people safe and preventing crime.

"As we see violence reduce across Scotland, particularly in young people, there is little doubt, in my opinion, that campus officers have played a part in this drop, embracing prevention, alongside great teachers. They have been extraordinary.

"Schools provided the perfect community, to engage, to encourage responsibility, to prevent. The officers saw the young people as assets to the community and engaged them in creating a safer society - both for them and others.

"Where a community officer might come into contact with 10 young people a day on the streets, they were coming into contact with hundreds on a daily basis.

"Robert Peel wrote that 'The test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder' - the campus officers embodied that principle."

John Carnochan, a former detective chief superintendent and VRU veteran, said it did not matter whether councils or police paid the bill for campus officers.

He said: "There is only one public purse. If local authorities don't want to, then, if I was the police, I would make a statement that demonstrated the importance of prevention and pay for them. This is something that works and that deserves to be supported."

A spokeswoman for Police Scotland said campus officers decisions were decided at a divisional rather than national level. She said budget savings were "a matter for East Renfrewshire Council".