The ten staff are based in five child development centres across Lancashire which deliver an essential service of care, therapy and diagnosis for children under five with special needs. Lancashire County Council says the posts are being 'disestablished' to ensure it does not overspend its budget.
Local health services and hospital trusts fund the centres' premises and additional staff, such as physiotherapists and educational psychologists, while the council's social services is responsible for nursery officer posts.
The centres concerned are: The Willows in Preston, Stepping Stones in Ormskirk, Longlands in Lancaster, Broadoaks in Preston and Holly House in Blackburn.
The threat to this vital service comes as Government ministers pledged to tackle the shortages of services for disabled children at the launch of a policy review of Children and Young People. Speaking last week, children's commissioner Al Aynsley-Green said current provision 'was nothing short of a national scandal'.
The nursery officers were told by letter on 14 February that their posts would be 'disestablished' and they would be offered redeployment. According to the Transport and General Workers Union (TGWU), which is representing them, they have been given no information on how the decision was reached, despite applying to the council under the Freedom of Information Act earlier this month.
Les Parker, Lancashire secretary of the TGWU, claims the council is breaching its budget procedures by failing to consult or inform the unions, health services and parents. He claims 'no party had any prior knowledge'.
Preston Primary Care Trust, which runs Broadoaks in partnership with Lancashire Teaching Hospital, confirmed that the first warning they received from the council was 26 February.
A spokesman for the council said, 'A letter is being sent out to all PCT chief executives asking if the PCT would want to retain these nursery officers within the child development centres at their own cost.'
One nursery officer told Nursery World, 'Our position is dreadful now. We come into work every day wondering when the axe is going to fall. And it's not just our jobs, it's the whole service that's at threat. We feel the service is worth fighting for.'
Local parents are campaigning to save the nursery officers' jobs. Dawn Mahood, whose five-year-old son, Matthew, was diagnosed with autism by a nursery officer at Ormskirk and is now at mainstream school, said, 'They are really the first point of contact for parents on everything. They are the font of all knowledge and without nursery officers, I have no idea where this information will come from.'
The council said parents would continue to receive support from children's centres, early years services, Sure Start local programmes and children's social care services in Lancashire.
The council spokesman said that meetings with two groups of nursery officers would take place next week, and that possible vacancies have been identified in family support resource centres in the council's children's integrated services for the nursery officers.