COUNCILS have been warned against making damaging cuts to frontline education services by the new general secretary of a Scottish teaching union.

Seamus Searson, who was unveiled by the Scottish Secondary Teachers' Association (SSTA) earlier this month, said the sort of cuts now being considered by local authorities would damage the education of a generation.

And he warned pupils from deprived areas would suffer most from cuts to teachers numbers, support staff and services such as breakfast clubs.

A number of councils have come forward with plans to cut education services in recent weeks with South Lanarkshire suggesting class sizes in deprived communities could be increased and teachers axed.

East Renfrewshire said it was considering having larger English and maths classes and Falkirk Council said teacher numbers and support staff could be cut as well as the number of subjects on offer. Cuts to the school library service and breakfast clubs have also been suggested.

Mr Searson, who takes up his post in February, told The Herald councils who cut teachers numbers could not expect the same level of education.

He said: "If you make class sizes bigger and you don't give teachers the same levels of support and resources then it becomes very difficult to get the same returns.

"One of the things we need to highlight to those that make these decisions is that they have to accept they will not be getting the same standard of education if they impose cuts and the consequence of that will be to the detriment of the young people.

"Those youngsters won't get that chance again because they only get one stab at it when they are going through the education service. Even some of the so-called softer services like breakfast clubs are crucial because in some instances they may be the only time of day a pupil gets a decent meal."

Mr Searson, who has worked in teacher trade unions in England and Northern Ireland, said it was crucial for different trade unions to campaign together on issues such as teacher numbers and cuts.

He said: "It makes a much bigger impact when everyone is saying the same thing. We need everyone who works in the education service to persuade the public and the politicians that education is a service that needs to be protected.

"Politicians are often doing something in the short term, but they need to look at the long term implications of what they do and that is for us to argue for and that will be part of my target in Scotland."

Mr Searson also said he was aware of the current issues of workload on teachers as a result of the introduction of the new Curriculum for Excellence (CFE) and its associated exams.

He said: "These are big changes and they take a long time to deliver and have to be built in to what schools do, but the problem is that sometimes they are rushed through and it adds to the workload because people don't know what they are supposed to do so they over-commit with paperwork.

"There is also the accountability regime that exists where teachers are constantly asked to prove what they have done and that is something we have to challenge.

"Teachers are professionals and their judgements should be trusted, but we have got so much paperwork to justify what they have done, what they are doing and what they will do in the future. The sad thing about it is that no-one reads it."

Mr Searson worked as a design and technology teacher in the London borough of Tower Hamlets for 25 years and became a head of faculty there before he took up a full-time role as an official with the NAS/UWT teaching union as the national executive member for London between 1998 and 2003.

In 2005, Mr Searson moved to Belfast to work for the NAS/UWT as the lead official there and after eight years left to become regional official with the National Union of Teachers based in the North West of England.