SCOTLAND'S four national arts companies were yesterday told that they would receive long-promised extra funding from the Scottish Office, but at the cost of jobs.

Announcing that he was releasing #2.4m to be shared among the four companies - Scottish Opera, Scottish Ballet, the Royal Scottish National and Scottish Chamber Orchestras - Arts Minister Sam Galbraith said that the cost would ''entail some pain''.

Specifically, he has accepted a programme that will see the opera and ballet companies merge their technical and administrative departments, the joint staff of which, currently at 117, will almost certainly see job losses.

The greater proportion of the jobs is in Scottish Opera, which has 42 administrative staff working in finance, fundraising, sponsorship, marketing, press, and planning departments. It also has 47 technical staff such as stage crew and electricians. Scottish Ballet has 28 employees in equivalent posts.

Each acknowledged yesterday that the merger meant radical change. Neither would speculate on numbers or likely areas of redundancy.

Ruth Mackenzie, general director of Scottish Opera, said: ''We will work with the staff and the unions to pursue an outcome that causes the least possible pain.''

Nobody at Bectu, the union involved, was available for comment.

Neither the opera nor the ballet would speculate on the saving that will be made, though it is unlikely to be less than #300,000.

Mr Galbraith said that, while the agreement was a conclusion to years of discussion, it also represented a new beginning.

Meetings will begin next week to create the new structure. Each company is guaranteed that its individual identity will be preserved. Each will retain its own board of directors, orchestra, artistic director, and distinctive programme of work.

The RSNO and SCO, meanwhile, confirmed that they have agreed to investigate further the potential for collaboration through joint ventures. The agreement by all four companies to collaborate, upon which the release of the extra funds depended, marks the probable conclusion of the longest running saga in the history of Scotland's arts companies.

In order to address a range of recurring financial crises, the four companies have, over the past six years, found themselves faced with every conceivable permutation of orchestras and resources. All were rejected.

Even the direct intervention of the previous government, promising a financial package in return for collaboration, failed to impress the protagonists, who fought to protect the autonomy of their own companies.

Last year, Mr Galbraith released the first tranche of extra money - promised initially by the Tories as a three-year deal - as a sign of good faith.

Conditions were attached that the companies produce costed plans of how they were going to give value for money. Yesterday's announcement suggests the Minister is satisfied.