Johnston Press is exploring a possible merger of production and photographic departments at its three Edinburgh-based newspapers, which may lead to job cuts.

Evening News editor John McLellan has been charged with collating a report on production processes and picture desk at The Scotsman, Scotland on Sunday and his own paper by the end of the week.

He said: “The situation is that we’re looking at merging our production and photographic processes of all three titles under one roof.

“This would involve sub-editors and picture desk and I’m compiling a report.

“I think it’s possible to merge them but the question is what will the effect be and how will it operate. I only learned about this at the end of last week.”

It is believed any merger could lead to job cuts.

Mr McLellan also denied there were any plans for the three titles to come under one editor-in-chief as announced at the Herald and Times Group in Glasgow last week.