Private companies are providing 80 per cent of Oxfordshire County Council's adult care services at a cost of £130m a year.

The county has become such an expensive place to live that the authority is having to hire workers from agencies to provide specialist residential care, day support and home help, councillors were due to be told today (March 15).

The high cost of living, lack of affordable accommodation and a low unemployment rate are factors blamed for the fact that county hall finds it difficult to attract staff.

County council-employed social services staff are paid about £7 an hour, which is more than agency staff.

As local government employees they are entitled to join a pension scheme and claim statutory sick pay whereas agency staff are not.

A report tabled at today's executive committee meeting reveals the true cost of social and health care contracts.

Conservative county councillor Don Seale, executive member for community care and health, said: "We rely heavily on the independent sector for the specialities they bring to the service.

"I don't think it matters that agency staff are employed. It's good in as much as we can look at each contract every year and are not tied into a relationship that might be going wrong.

"Once you employ someone you have them for sometime and the cost of things like pensions is there, which you don't have with agency staff."

The cost of paying for private staff takes up more than half the social and healthcare direct- orate's £235m annual budget.

A council spokesman added: "The social and healthcare directorate has been purchasing increasing amounts of care since 1993 when the then Government required that more than half the grant given for community care be spent in that way."