THE body charged with responsibility for Glasgow's civic museums, galleries and sports facilities is employing 300 staff on zero-hours contracts.

Glasgow Life, an arms-length trust owned by the city council, is also seeking 25 customer-service assistants on the same terms to work across museums, libraries and arts venues.

Amid intensifying public debate about reduced conditions, Glasgow Life has defended its use of zero-hours contracts, insisting it is part of a process to eradicate casual contracts.

It employs 284 staff on such contracts, including technicians, sports coaches, customer services assistants and managers, receptionists and clerks.

In all, the Glasgow City Council "family", which includes its raft of arms-length organisations, employs almost 600 staff on zero-hours contracts, the majority of the remainder within Cordia, which covers services ranging from catering to social care.

But the figures have caused a degree of concern within the trade unions, that claim the prevalence of zero-hours contracts in the arms-length bodies was part of an erosion of terms and conditions to save money.

Alex Gordon of Unison said: "In our experience, zero-hours contracts are not to the benefit of the employee."

Only a handful work within the "council proper" and include reserve organists for bereavement services, "appropriate adults" in social work, mostly retired social workers or police officers, as well as sessional workers for specific projects.

One senior source said it would be "wrong to compare the council with Amazon", adding: "It's not as if we employ bin men on zero-hours contracts."

Unison also said it was carrying out a trawl of "council family" staff to determine precise numbers and where employees could be moved on to full-time contracts.

Recent weeks have seen public disquiet over the contracts after it emerged there are one million zero-hours jobs in the UK, four times as many as previously estimated.

The Scottish Government has suggested it could bar com­panies that use the terms from tendering for lucrative public procurement contracts. Meanwhile, Scottish councils, universities and high-street names, such as McDonald's, have all admitted employing staff on the terms.

Last week, Glasgow Labour MP Ann McKechin criticised the use of the terms, calling for an immediate debate when the House of Commons returns and "urgent action to tackle the abuse of these zero-hour contracts".

However, her comments have been seized on by the council's SNP group, accusing Labour of being "at sixes and sevens over zero-hour contracts, with Ann McKechin condemning them while her Labour council colleagues make use of them".

A spokesman for Glasgow Life, said: "We are committed to eradicating casual contracts and ensuring such staff are employed on improved terms, which provide benefits such as holiday, maternity/paternity, sick pay and access to our pension scheme."

A Cordia spokesman said: "We employ 8300 staff, 97% of whom are on full contractual agreements. Of our entire workforce, 264, slightly over 3%, are employed using zero-hour contracts.

"These staff members, mainly students, people working second jobs and others where this type of arrangement suits their lifestyle, work within our hospitality division on an ad hoc basis, providing important catering services at one-off events. The nature of the hospitality business is that staff work at events on an irregular or seasonal basis, and for some periods of the year there are no events requiring additional staff."