Rover's laid-off workers will receive a small severance package in comparison to other car industry redundancy pay-offs.

PricewaterhouseCoopers, the firm's administrators, have said staff could expect the statutory minimum deal of #280 for every year of service.

But workers have said they only expect to receive money for a maximum of 12 years - this would mean a ceiling of #3,360 on any financial settlement.

For staff who have been with Rover for more than 20 years the payoff will fall far below what they might have expected.

When Ford ended car production at its biggest UK plant - Dagenham in Essex -in 2002, a generous package was announced for 1,100 workers who lost their jobs.

About 850 staff took early retirement or redundancy packages worth up to #50,000 each.

In 2000 Vauxhall announced it would stop making cars at its Luton, Beds plant with the loss of 2,000 jobs.

Staff were offered payments well above the statutory minimum, plus a car, or the chance to transfer to another of the firm's plants

The important difference between the three cases is that the redundancies at Ford and Vauxhall were voluntary while Rover's are compulsory.

Ford and Vauxhall were reorganising particular production centres and did not have financial problems, so had substantial amounts to offer workers.

Rover's administrators are attempting to salvage what they can from the company that has effectively stopped making cars.