The council is facing a �9.5m budget shortfall for 2006/7 and hopes the planned redundancies will divert funds to areas such as transport and police.

A council spokesman said the county had received insufficient government funds for its growing population.

Unison's Richard Carr said the planned cuts would have a "catastrophic" impact on services for vulnerable people.

Council leader Jim Harker said the authority was looking at how it delivered services so that resources were targeted properly.

He said: "This process has been made considerably harder by the government because our allocation of resources from Westminster does not reflect our increased areas of responsibility.

Youth 'at risk'

"We have identified around 400 full time equivalent posts that could be directly affected by these current proposals. This could increase as we go through this process."

Plans for further redundancies before the end of the year have not been ruled out, he added.

Mr Carr, Unison branch secretary, said: "I'm pretty staggered at the suggestion that services for some of the most vulnerable people within our community could be stopped.

"For example, the youth service may be taken out of the council's direct control and some 197 disaffected young people could be put at risk.

"Instead, money is being diverted to car owners at the expense of the most vulnerable."

A series of meetings, between Unison and the council, have been planned to discuss the implications of the cuts for each service area, he added.