Fresh talks between Glasgow City Council, the Unison union and the deputy first minister have begun just hours after negotiations appeared to collapse again.

Talks over a controversial pay regrading system have been ongoing after the council agreed on Friday to pause its plan to fire and rehire 23,000 workers under new terms.

The new pay system would replace one found to discriminate against mainly women workers, but it would leave about 11% of staff worse off, with some losing £11,000 a year.

On Wednesday night, a council statement said talks had broken down and suggested Unison members could now face being sent letters over fire and rehire.

The council said a new offer would extend the protection period for staff facing wage cuts but that Unison had refused to put the offer to its members.

When asked during a city administration committee meeting on Thursday if he would make a statement over talks "breaking down", council leader Ricky Bell said he would not, and denied that there was a breakdown.

This appeared to contradict the council's statement released on social media on Wednesday night, which said this was the case.

An emergency motion brought by Green councillors that asked Bell to rule out fire and rehire was not accepted at the meeting.

He said talks were still ongoing with two other unions, the GMB and Unite and added that discussions between Deputy First Minister Jenny Gilruth, the council and Unison were now taking place.

Bell said it would not be appropriate to comment further.

Gilruth previously intervened last week to "bring all parties together" after the initial fire and rehire announcement was made.

BBC Scotland News understands that she is fulfilling the same role in these latest talks.

She previously said the Scottish government was opposed to fire and rehire practices and that she expected "all parties [to] act in line with the principles of fair work and continue to exhaust all avenues for collective agreement."

The council says the majority of staff will have their pay unaffected or improved by the proposed new system.

For those facing "detriment", it had initially offered to protect their pay for six months, then extended this to 12 months after talks.

The authority said it had now secured funding which allowed it to offer an additional year of funding during the latest negotiations.

However, Unison members on social media said the union's pay justice forum had told them the extra year was only half of one element they wanted for members.

It has called for increased investment in the cash value for the grades, an improved arrears and allowances package and three years of pay protection, not two.

On Wednesday Bell said he was "deeply disappointed" that Unison had still declined to put an offer to members despite the further year of pay protection.

He added: "Taken together with the improvements made since August, this represents a package well over £100m in extra pay for our staff."

Bell said the council had gone the "extra mile" to address concerns, but said some of the union's demands, particularly for extra allowances, were "simply unworkable".

The council leader's Wednesday statement suggested that fire and rehire letters could be sent to Unison members.

He added: "We had paused the issue of letters to our staff to allow space for further discussion.

"Although Unison's actions bring that pause to an end, we are working with Unite and GMB to ensure that their members are not dismissed and re-engaged."

Unison told members it was seeking "a properly funded settlement that delivers equal pay without leaving thousands of other workers behind."

The local authority is seeking to replace its old pay system after its Workforce Pay and Benefits Review - introduced in 2006 when Labour were in power - was found to discriminate against female workers.

That has resulted in the council spending hundreds of millions of pounds to settle discrimination claims, something it cannot cope with financially in the long-run.

For the new system, jobs have been evaluated against various criteria, such as physical effort, mental skills and concentration.

They have then been scored and placed into a pay grade, out of a possible 12.

However the changes mean some workers - estimated at 11% of those who have been graded - face pay cuts of thousands of pounds.

Staff with domestic abuse advocacy service Assist will see wages slashed by about £11,000 and Unison says several thousand workers do not know how they will be affected because they are still waiting for their jobs to be evaluated.

The new contracts would take effect from 1 January, which is also when a new UK-wide law banning fire and rehire comes into force.