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

The entire workforce will receive letters in the coming weeks and the scheme will close at the end of March next year.

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

About 1,000 jobs are set to go as part of the 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.”

He said that in the course of an average year the county would see close to 1,000 staff lost through people leaving or retiring.

Money to repair Hampshire’s roads, waste disposal and even the county’s trading standards service could be severely streamlined as th authority attempts to balance the books.

But Mr Perry said Hampshire had to face up to the fact that Government grants to councils would continue to fall and action was needed.

He said: “It’s no good putting decisions off. The sooner one addresses the situation, the easier it is to handle and deal with it.

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

Further details of the cuts will be agreed in July.

Continued on page 3 It comes as the county council’s own chief executive Andrew Smith predicts the dire financial situation will not improve for “many, many years to come” and says there is no longer any “easy” way to make savings.