WORCESTERSHIRE County Council has chosen Pertemps Recruitment Partnership to supply its temporary staff.

Pertemps fought off major competition from around the country to land the exclusive master vendor contract with the council.

The contract, which began in January, will run for an initial three years, with an option to extend for a further two at the council's discretion.

Arleen Hull, corporate business manager for Pertemps, was instrumental in securing the new deal. She said: "This is a sub-stantial contract and we are absolutely delighted that Worcestershire Coun-ty Council has chosen Pertemps Recruitment Partnership as its preferred supplier. "At Per-temps, we recognise that the needs of the public sector are different from private sector businesses and we are looking forward to working in partnership with the council during the next three years, helping it to achieve its aims and aspirations."

The new workers will be employed by Pertemps as flexible employees and will therefore not be temps in the traditional sense.

Before choosing Per-temps, the local authority had to satisfy itself that the company could fulfil the terms of the contract.

The quality threshold was extremely high and companies failing to match up to the county council's standards were promptly excluded from the bidding process.

Initially, the council had to satisfy itself that its supplier had the long-term commercial stability necessary to continue supplying it with the staff it would need.

Next, it had to be confident that the chosen specialist would deliver workers of a consistently high standard. It also took into account the level of expe-rience each supplier had in the public sector and in working with local authorities. Finally, it had to take into account training and likely turnaround, diversity, and the ability to supply staff across the county.