HAMPSHIRE County Council workers are choosing to opt out of their pension scheme because they are unable to afford the monthly payments, a councillor has claimed.

County councillors asked officers to look into the issue at an employment committee meeting, citing problems with high staff turnover rates and increasing workloads due to ongoing voluntary redundancies.

Cllr Criss Connor said: “There is a relatively high percentage of people who have not joined the pension fund and that's not to their advantage. People are not opting in because they do not have the money to opt into their pension and that concerns me.”

Chief executive Andrew Smith said in some cases the disparity between management level salaries to that of the private sector was “between £20,000-£30,000 adrift”.

“In some situations we can only pay half of the private market rates,” he said. “[The market is] expanding rapidly, the hot spots are then exacerbated by the market changes.

“I think experience tells us we often start to lose people in transport or engineering because the private sector is prepared to pay more. Pay is something very hard for us to argue with.

“We have found recruitment agencies tell us we're probably not likely to get a great supply of candidates. The business has changed quite radically in the last three years.

“An architect working for us now would have no reason to find work in the private sector,” he added. “But we have particular hotspots for people in care and we have been unable to attract young people to that. People would rather work in Waitrose than in care homes.”

Mr Smith further added: “I'm always astonished we always retain such a good group of people. It's a very complicated position but it's a credit to the county council that our staff stay and they look to you and to me to build upon those careers through good times and bad times.”