Selby District Council has hit back at a national union’s criticism of a major shake-up of its services.

The council’s Service Delivery Vehicle (SDV) sees a core of 14 staff contract out services to third parties, with the aim of saving about £1.5 million this year, and £3 million by 2014.

A report into the plans has been critical, but the council said public service union Unison had failed to offer an alternative.

Unison asked Government watchdog the Association for Public Service Excellence (APSE) to look into the SDV. The APSE report said: “The document does not have the detail necessary to constitute a robust business plan and appears to have been written to support a pre-conceived view of what the key elements of a new approach are to be.”

The report also suggested the council should abandon “its preconceived view as to the most efficient approach to service delivery”, and carry out further analysis of the plans and demand on its services.

But spokeswoman for Selby District Council said criticism of the SDV was not the same as offering an alternative.

She said: “Interestingly, the report we received from them had no alternative to our plans. They are yet to put forward their own ideas for how we should deal with a near 30 per cent reduction in funding over four years. “Indeed, we’re already dealing with a 15 per cent reduction in Government funding starting right now, this month.

“Carrying on as if this wasn’t happening would be a recipe for disaster.”

Mark Harrison, regional organiser for Unison, said: “There is no business in the business plan, only a recipe for disaster.

“They need to go back to the drawing board before it is too late.

“It’s the people of Selby who will suffer because of this unsupportable approach, as their services start to disappear.

“We hope the public will join their voice to ours and tell the council to stop this misguided plan going forward.”

The spokeswoman said: “Our new way of working, which was implemented on April 1, enables us to make the very best use of resources across the whole organisation.

“This means that we can make better use of the money we receive from hardworking families and individuals in this district.

“This is about changing the way we work to get more from less.

“We’re not going to apologise about that.”