MANAGERS should be sacked to safeguard the future of a Southampton factory for disabled workers, trade unions have demanded.

The controversial rescue plan for the city's Remploy plant - and dozens of others across the country - would involve slashing national management costs by a quarter and reducing other administrative costs by £20m.

The GMB and TGWU unions said they were confident that sales of furniture and other products could rise by 7.5 per cent every year for the next five years.

Remploy is reviewing the future of its 83-strong network of factories after successive years of falling sales. Under the unions' alternative business plan, backed up by a report by accountants Grant Thornton, every Remploy factory would remain open and no disabled worker would be made redundant.

Phil Davies, GMB national secretary, said: "We need to look at a 25 per cent reduction of senior management which would save millions and millions of pounds."

Jennie Formby, T&G national secretary, said the Grant Thornton report proved Remploy could survive on its annual £111m handout from the Government.

She said: "Some of the senior management are going to have to go. They are not going to be able to deliver what the company and disabled workers need." Only four per cent of managers were disabled, she added.

Remploy is the biggest employer of disabled people in the country, but the future of the factories was thrown into doubt when the National Audit Office found that some of the 83 factories - which together employ around 5,500 people - were financially unsustainable.