BAE SYSTEMS today announced 260 jobs would be axed at Samlesbury and Warton.

Group managing director Stephen Henwood said the job losses would affect support staff mainly in administrative and clerical areas.

No manufacturing jobs are involved and the company also revealed it would be recruiting an additional 450 engineers over the next three months.

Mr Henwood said the job losses would save the company around £5 million.

"The company is going through a period of change," he said.

"This is not a decline in the business. These job losses are necessary to improve the performance of the business. We are a dynamic business.

"The fact is the business is not delivering adequate returns to its shareholders and is just not performing."

Mr Henwood refused to rule out any further redundancies but stressed there were no other job losses in the pipeline.

Unions were informed of the job losses earlier today and the company is hoping to redeploy and retrain many of the staff being made redundant.

Mr Henwood said it was not possible to specify how many jobs would go at Samlesbury.

However, it is thought that the bulk of the job losses will be at Warton.