IT is undoubtedly the county’s biggest employer, with enough staff to fill a Premier League football stadium and more than the population of some small countries.

Hampshire County Council has revealed that it is creating hundreds of new jobs – taking its total staff level to more than 40,000. That means that council leader Cllr Ken Thornber is in charge of a workforce greater than that of the entire Royal Navy.

It also lands the council tax payer with an annual wage bill of £306m, and that doesn’t include paying for teachers who are funded directly from central Government.

But now staffing levels at the local authority have come under fire from council finance watchdogs.

Daily Echo: Hampshire staff levels compared with other county councils

The county workforce covers schools, social services, roads maintenance, recycling and libraries outside of Southampton and Ports-mouth.

But Mike Schofield, from IsItFair, right, said that voters would struggle to understand why it was necessary to employ so many people.

“The Royal Navy defends our waters worldwide with 34,000 people. It is absolutely unbelievable the county employs more people than the Navy and they all have generous taxpayer-funded pensions and can choose to retire at 60,” he said.

Next week the council will vote on its annual budget, which will see its workforce increase by another 724 posts at a time when other councils are planning redundancies in the recession.

Council chiefs say that most of the new posts are in frontline services for children and the elderly – and will boost the local economy.

Cllr Thornber described the proposals, including a 1.9 per cent tax rise, which would take the average band D bill for county council services to £1,018, as a “budget for jobs and for the public”.

The new posts at the Winchester-based council include 227 existing employees of Connexions youth advisory service, which transferred to the council.

A further 233 staff are for new children’s centres for the under-fives, and there are 45 jobs in the IT department.

In addition, the Conservative-run council is proposing to employ 38 extra social work staff in the wake of the Baby P scandal, and 171 extra posts in adult social services because of the growing number of elderly in need of care.

Other new jobs include 18 in the county council catering service for schools.

Figures from council accounts show that the number of staff, including part-timers, rose to 39,352 last year. This was 8,437 more than 1997-8 – a rise of 27 per cent.

The row over council staffing levels comes just days after the Daily Echo revealed that households in Hampshire are paying £215 a year to meet the rising cost of town hall pensions.

Council chiefs hiked employer contributions – subsidised by the taxpayer – to plug an £891m black hole in the Hampshire pension fund.

However, council bosses say that 485 of the new posts are centrally-funded by Government grants.

The Daily Echo revealed last month that 1,468 council employees across the county earn more than £50,000 a year, including 916 at Hampshire County Council and 188 at Southampton.

The overcall cost to council tax payers of the extra jobs is £1.2m this year.