SCHOOL support staff have been cut by more than 20% in almost ten years, according to the Labour Party.

The numbers of Library staff, technicians and Laboratory workers has gone down since the SNP took office its education spokesman claimed.

The party produced figures to show the number of support staff in local authority schools has fallen from 24,106 in 2007 to 19,743 a drop of 4363 or 22%.

Education spokesman Daniel Johnson said it was a drop of around ten non-teaching staff members a week for the last nine years.

The figures showed lab assistants has reduced from 70 to 32, librarians from 351 to 253 and technicians from 1260 to 957.

With the Scottish Government’s stated aim of reducing the attainment gap, Labour said the reduction was short sighted.

Mr Johnson said: “These are staggering numbers of key jobs lost in our schools. The SNP say that education is their top priority but you can’t cut the gap between the richest and the rest in our classrooms whilst cutting support staff.

“Education is the single most important economic investment a government can make, we should be investing in these jobs, not scrapping them.”

Labour will propose an amendment to the Scottish Budget when it is introduced in December by Finance Minister, Derek Mackay, to raise income tax to pay for public spending.

Labour say it wants the Scottish Government to use the new income tax powers available to raise cash to stop cuts to councils who employ teachers and school support staff.

The proposal will be for a penny increase on the basic rate of tax to 21% and for a new top rate of tax of 50% for earnings over £150,000.

The SNP have said they will reject the amendment stating it puts the burden of austerity on to ordinary working families.

Ms Johnson added: “The SNP faces a choice: it can pass on an austerity budget form the Tories in Westminster, or it can use the new tax powers of the Scottish Parliament to stop the cuts and invest in schools instead.”

Labour say the move would raise almost £600m a year for public spending.

The SNP plan to spend £100m for education reforms to reduce the attainment gap between rich and poor.

It will raise the money by reform of the council tax with the higher bands paying an increased amount.

It argues Labour’s top rate tax plan could actually cost Scotland £30m a year in revenue instead of raising more.

Mr Mackay will announce the draft budget on December 15