ROYAL Bank of Scotland is to cut a further 1400 jobs including nearly 600 in Scotland as it makes swingeing cuts to its retail banking head office over the next two years.

The move condemned by unions comes less than 48 hours after the bailed-out bank's chairman, Sir Philip Hampton, indicated redundancies were on the cards.

Some 37,500 roles have already been lost at RBS under group chief executive Stephen Hester, who was appointed after the £45.5 billion taxpayer bailout in 2008, and Unite, Britain's biggest union, said 700 of the latest cutbacks had been outlined to affected staff.

It will bring the RBS retail head office headcount down from 3600 to 2200 over the next two years. The changes affect support staff for the bank's retail arm including those working in communications, marketing and customer analytics.

More than 40% of staff affected are based in Edinburgh and the vast majority of the remainder in London, with some in smaller centres such as Birmingham, Manchester and Bristol.

While RBS is cutting costs it is also trying to prepare the business for privatisation.

Unite condemned RBS for "brutal and irresponsible" behaviour by announcing 1400 job cuts just one day after figures were released that showed UK un-employment rose by 15,000.

Warning of the impact the cuts will have on local economies and customer service, Unite national officer Dominic Hook said: "This is brutal and irresponsible behaviour from RBS which is almost entirely owned by the taxpayer. It is high time the bank took its social responsibilities seriously.

"Since the beginning of the year, RBS, HSBC, Barclays and Lloyds have announced plans to slash around 6900 jobs. The industry almost caused the economy to implode in 2008 and now it is contributing to a jobs crisis."

He added: "RBS made £826 million in the first quarter of this year, the bank is returning to profit. Unite does not believe there is a business case for cutting jobs so drastically. RBS argues that the restructure will make the bank more customer focused but a bank can't be more customer focused with 1400 fewer staff. Unite is demanding no compulsory redundancies and we expect this state-owned bank to do everything to ensure this is the case."

John Swinney, Cabinet Secretary for Finance, Employment and Sustainable Growth, said the Scottish Government would do everything it could to provide support and help to those affected by job losses in Scotland through the Finance Sector Jobs Taskforce and the Partnership Action for Con-tinuing Employment initiative.

"This is disappointing news for those involved and will be a deeply worrying time for those staff affected and their families," he said.

Mr Swinney said the confirmation RBS will be reinvesting in Edinburgh as a vital centre for retail banking, including through an innovation centre and updated IT systems, is "a welcome commitment to Scotland".

He added: "This £175m investment in Scotland, over the next three years, will significantly enhance our position as one of the main IT hubs for the global RBS Group and make Scotland the bank's global centre for mobile banking and its global payments hub."

Ross McEwan, chief executive of the bank's UK retail arm, said: "To serve our customers well we have to ensure our resources are focused on the things that matter most to them. That is why we are investing £700m in the next three years in new and improving services.

"Regrettably, we can only do that by restructuring the way we work in head office so every effort is concentrated on supporting our customers and the frontline staff that serve them.

"This is clearly difficult news for our staff and we will do everything we can to support them, including seeking redeployment opportunities wherever possible to ensure compulsory redundancies are a last resort."