More than 120 school caretakers, cleaners and secretaries still do not know where they will be working after their schools shut this summer.

Keith Williamson, regional officer of the union Unison, said his members were demoralised at the process, which he says was set a "ridiculous" timescale.

There are 24 caretakers, 51 cleaners and 46 administration staff whose schools will shut in July but who have not been placed in new jobs.

Councillor Susanne Rooney, the Executive Member for Education and Lifelong Learning on Bradford Council, pledged there would be places for all staff.

But Derek Carver, chairman of the governing body at closing Stoney Lee Middle School, near Cottingley, Bingley, said staff at his school felt the extra work they were having to do was to get the Council out of the mess it had created.

"There's nothing in what the Council has said that would give you incentive for achieving anything."

The school had support staff as well as teachers without jobs.

"It seems shameful, as if they're not being treated as the professionals they are, and they will be wasted to the authority. It's the human resources they're going to waste," said Mr Carver.

"These administrators aren't secretaries, they run the school. To shove some of these people away in other jobs isn't going to be satisfactory."

People had lost the little faith they had in the redeployment process, said Mr Carver. "There's no confidence that what the Council says is going to happen or is true.

"Staff feel they're numbers on a piece of paper."

And other support staff, such as school and classroom assistants, are suffering the same problems with Bradford's schools shake-up.

Under a redeployment agreement between Bradford Council and the union, there will be no compulsory redundancies but staff could have to take jobs in other parts of the Council.

The news follows revelations in the Telegraph & Argus on Tuesday that more than 220 teachers still have no jobs to go to.

Margaret Richards, who has 20 years experience as a school administrator, has been at Stoney Lee School for 11 years but still has not been placed.

Mrs Richards described herself as "very disheartened". She helped to set up anassociation for school secretaries ten years ago and says many other administrators now face the same experience she is going through.

"We have been told there are jobs with the Council doing other things but most of us don't want to do other things."

Mr Williamson said staff would have salaries protected, but the long-term aim was for people to work in jobs which reflected their skills.

Mrs Richards said: "In middle schools, administrators tend to do all the accounts and get reasonable salaries. Clerical jobs with the Council don't have the same remit.

"The people who work in school offices applied for jobs in schools. If we had wanted to work in another area we would have applied for that."

Coun Rooney said all permanent staff displaced by the reorganisation would be offered new posts.

In the short term, she said it was possible that administration, caretaking and cleaning staff from middle schools forming part of a split site school would be asked to stay on.

"The consultation about split sites is still going on, but when it finishes on February 24, we should know more."

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