A COUNCIL offering higher pay to recruit more staff has taken on 30 new workers.

West Wiltshire District Council has been struggling to retain staff and to recruit new workers.

Now it is bringing in a scheme to offer more pay for posts it has trouble filling.

Union representatives said the pay scheme was badly needed as staff were leaving to take up jobs with other councils offering higher salaries.

The cash boost will be available for posts where the council has tried to recruit twice but failed to fill the position.

Personnel manager Sharon Larkin said: "There have been substantial advances with recruitment and more than 30 people have started work this year.

"Many of the posts had been vacant for some time, either because of departmental reorganisations or funding difficulties, but in the majority of cases these have been filled quite easily."

She said the council had trouble recruiting planning staff as there is a national shortage of planners.

She said: "Some problems have arisen in filling posts that demand professionally qualified people, especially in development control, where a national shortage of qualified, experienced planning professionals has made it difficult to fill all vacancies straightaway."

The council is interviewing candidates this month for three posts in the planning department and several new appointments have already been made in the department.

Ms Larkin said: "We have had problems in recent months with recruiting staff to some posts. Given that we employ more than 300 people, we currently have fewer than 15 vacancies, and interviews have been fixed for most of these."

The council also operates a strategy which aims to help staff stay fit and healthy.

Ms Larkin said almost two thirds of the 300-strong workforce will have had stress awareness training by the end of next month.