Technicians union BECTU claim London-based staff travelled to Glasgow to shoot Life Of Riley and the Old Guys, which were broadcast UK-wide earlier this year.

The corporation, which last year hailed the two programmes as a boost for the struggling Scottish TV production industry, was accused of squandering budgets.

But the BBC said a mix of production staff from Scotland and elsewhere is standard practice and they will use the same mix of cameramen, sound engineers and lighting experts for the next series of Life Of Riley.

The corporation refused to confirm crews had been flown from London, but Paul McManus, of technicians union BECTU, said English staff were lodged in a hotel near Loch Lomond while London-based cameramen were paid more than their Scottish counterparts.

Mr McManus said: “Bringing up a crew from outside for a major sitcom could cost hundreds of thousands of pounds. There is travel, wages, accommodation for these outside crews, and lots of other costs.

“This is money the BBC can ill-afford to spend at a time when we are negotiating over planned redundancies because of a shortage of money.”

The trade union, backed by SNP culture secretary Mike Russell, has demanded a meeting with BBC bosses to raise concerns about London-based crews staffing Scottish productions. A spokeswoman for the BBC said: “The majority of the production and craft staff who will work on the studio-based sitcom Life Of Riley will be BBC Scotland or Scottish-based freelancers.

“It is not unusual for there to be a mix of production staff from Scotland and elsewhere for some productions.

“This is the second series of Life Of Riley out of Pacific Quay and commissions such as this and The Old Guys are significant in developing BBC Scotland as a sustainable centre of production excellence. Production of the second series of The Old Guys is still some months off and therefore no concrete staffing decisions have been made, but we would expect there to be a mix of both BBC Scotland staff and freelancers working on the production.”

Earlier this year, director-general Mark Thompson warned the public broadcaster would have to make £400million savings from its £3.5billion budget over the next three years to ensure it stayed within its existing overdraft limits.