One of Bradford's top recruitment agencies is set to expand.

Relay Recruitment already has offices in Bradford, Leeds and Halifax and now has plans to open four in North Yorkshire - the first of which will open in York in March.

The offices will see 12 more staff taken on and see the number of candidates it finds work for increase by thousands.

Relay Recruitment specialises in providing full-time staff to industrial, commercial, engineering and logistical businesses.

A spokesman for the agency, which has its headquarters on Salem Street, Bradford, said: "Our first branch will be in York and then we are looking at other venues, such as Harrogate and Selby for our next places.

"We are very much a Yorkshire company and our bases in Leeds, Bradford and Halifax are going strong. This is just the next step in our expansion." Relay Recruitment was founded in 1996 on North Street in Bradford city centre.

It founding principles were to provide employees and candidates with comfortable and compassionate working conditions which exceeded the requirements of Government regulations. And now the firm is to continue on these lines by expanding on its policies on parental support, childcare and family-friendly working patterns. The move will be spearheaded by operations director Alex Golding, who has just returned from 12-months maternity leave.

Mrs Golding said: "We have always known that the more support employees enjoy, the more productive, committed and loyal they will be.

"Now we believe we can bring even more to the work/life balance and aim to become the recruiter of choice for those who have interests and responsibilities outside of work."

The firm says that this high rate of staff retention has seen the human resources budgets plummet of the companies it provides staff to, as they are not always have to hire and train up new members of staff.

Relay employs more than 40 members of staff at its three offices across the county and has 7,000 candidates on its books all over the country.

It has taken honours at the annual Recruitment Awards for the past five years running.