UNION leaders have condemned plans to cut up to a quarter of National Museums Liverpool jobs.

Almost 150 of the organisation’s 588 staff are under threat as it battles to find £3m savings over the next two years.

Clara Paillard, Chair of the Public and Commercial Services Union for museums, claims that up to 40 jobs have already gone through voluntary redundancies and end of fixed-term contracts over the past 12 months.

She said: “Every pound invested in culture brings £2 to the economy. Liverpool was Capital of Culture four years ago, this achievement is deeply tainted by the budget cuts in our museums.

“It’s not been a year since the new Museum of Liverpool opened. We spent over £70million on this but now we are being told we are going to lose our jobs - this is madness!”

NML Director Dr David Fleming said: “Like everyone else in the public sector we’ve been hit by severe funding cuts.

“The funding situation is very bad and it’s getting worse. It’s not possible to make the required savings without taking action that will have a significant impact on our visitors and staff.

“We’ll continue to look at alternatives but job losses are unavoidable.”