Plans by private firm Serco to introduce 'hot desking' at the education offices in West Bowling will be fiercely resisted by unions.

The company, which has been brought in to rescue the failing education authority, has already re-branded it as Education Bradford.

It now aims to boost morale among the Flockton House workers by introducing what it calls 'Serco Values' and a 'Serco customer care culture'.

But unions castigate the plans saying the practice of 'hot desking' - where staff have to share desks - will only reduce morale further.

Ian Murch, of the NUT, said: "People value their own space, whatever they do, and you demoralise them when you interfere with that."

He said the union had already made enquiries about whether hot desking would be introduced - as happened recently in Walsall in the West Midlands, when Serco took over education services there.

"When we asked they said it was something they were only doing at Walsall," Mr Murch said.

But Paul Brett - director of operations for Serco and a former Bedfordshire schools chief - told the Telegraph & Argus desk-sharing would be introduced as part of a shake-up of the office culture at Flockton House.

He said it was "old fashioned" to insist everyone needed their own desk.

"People need somewhere to keep their bits and pieces, but working practices have changed - people can be based out in the field with a laptop, they work from whereever," he said.

"They need a phone, a computer point and somewhere to sit and talk.

"The environment is more important than having a desk."

Bosses at the firm are keen to scrap individual offices in favour of open-plan layouts for all staff - including the most senior.

"Traditionally in local government, status is judged by the size of your room, but that isn't our culture," Mr Brett said, adding that he felt "liberated" working in an open plan space alongside colleagues.

Ian Davey, of the NASUWT, said unions had always been opposed to the idea of a private company taking over the service and teachers were suspicious of Serco.

"The only people who can raise standards in classrooms are teachers, and I can't see the connection between Flockton House and someone standing in front of a classroom," he said.

On the subject of hot desking, he added: "It sounds like there would be paper flying all over the place."