TWELVE thousand council staff will be offered voluntary redundancy as the authority bids to plug a £90m black hole in its budget.

The entire workforce at Hampshire County Council is to be offered an ‘enhanced package’ based on factors such as age and length of service, as the county bids to cut hundreds of jobs by 2015.

Letters will be sent to staff – including scores of people from Andover – in the coming weeks, with the scheme set to close at the end of March next year.

It comes as plans to cut a further £100m from the county council budget by 2018 were put into motion this week.

Around 1,000 jobs are set to be axed as part of the cuts, which are predicted to be so hard-hitting that civic chiefs have given the go ahead to start planning two years before they come into force.

Speaking to his Cabinet, which agreed to press ahead with the fresh round of cuts, Hampshire County Council leader Roy Perry said the council would strive to avoid forcing people out of their jobs.

He said: “To date we have achieved job losses with almost no compulsory redundancies and that will continue to be our ambition.

“Through the natural churn you get in a large organisation, people leave or go off to jobs elsewhere and many go into the private sector.

“I am told in the course of the year it’s quite common to have 700 or more people leave, and then it’s not unusual for 200 to 250 people to retire. That’s 1,000 in a year.

“I am not going to say no positions will be replaced. Clearly some are essential work.

“But we will do our level best to see that is how we manage the reduction in the job force – not by compulsory redundancies.”

The future of many frontline services, including those safeguarding some of the county’s most vulnerable children and adults, will also be under threat in the “colossal” round of cuts for 2017/18.

Money to repair Hampshire’s roads, waste disposal and even the county’s trading standards service could be severely streamlined.

Cllr Perry added: “It’s no good putting decisions off. The sooner one addresses the situation, the easier it is to handle.

That has been our strategy up to now and that will continue.”

Further details of the cuts will be agreed in July.