The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
More gloom from Lloyds
Banking group to axe roles from overall UK workforce, with Rosyth and Livingston centres in the firing line, in addition to the news that jobs are to be lost in Dundee
Lloyds Banking Group has piled further jobs misery on Tayside and Fife less than a day after moving to axe its Dundee contact centre.
The group said it was cutting a total of 340 roles from its overall UK workforce.
The Courier understands the bulk of that figure will be achieved through a significant reorganisation of its extensive operations in Fife.
Dunfermline MSP Shirley-Anne Sommerville said the group had advised it was closing its Rosyth call centre, which currently employs 572 staff, next year.
Those roles, along with scores from the Dundee site and some from the Livingston unit which is also being mothballed, will transfer to the group’s Pitreavie site at Dunfermline.
The Pitreavie workforce is expected to swell from a current staffing of around 1,300 to 2,000 by the end of this year as a result of the changes.
However, around 400 banking operations roles currently carried out at Pitreavie are being transferred out of the unit to other Lloyds sites across the UK, including into Manchester.
Ms Sommerville said: “This announcement from Lloyds is very worrying for the individuals involved, and I am deeply disappointed by it.
“Lloyds are an important employer in Dunfermline, and their Pitreavie office in particular has been an important source of local jobs for a number of years.
“I have previously contacted Lloyds seeking assurances that Dunfermline jobs are safe – and they assured me that group policy is to use natural turnover and to redeploy people where possible, in order to retain their expertise and knowledge.
“My focus is fully on Lloyds staff, and I have asked Lloyds for an urgent meeting to discuss their plans to reassure staff in Dunfermline that they will continue to have a job with the company, regardless of what redundancies are made locally.
“I would fully expect Lloyds to do all that they can to support local staff at this time, and to avoid compulsory redundancies.”
Unite the union regional officer Rob MacGregor said the job losses were completely unjustified.
He said: “The Lloyds Banking Group restructuring across Scotland will leave hundreds of employees in shock and fearful for their job security.
“It is devastating that Lloyds has informed staff that 340 jobs will be lost from the Scottish sites.
“How can LBG claim that ‘everything we do is focused on helping the businesses, people and communities of Britain to prosper’ when it chooses to embark on yet another massive job loss exercise?”
Lloyds said in a statement: “As part of our ongoing implementation to the Group’s 2015-17 Strategic Review, Lloyds Banking Group is today announcing 340 net role reductions as part of the total role reductions already announced as part this strategy.
“The majority of reductions are within Operations and Retail divisions. The net total is inclusive of 380 new roles that will be created across these business areas. This process involves taking difficult decisions, and we are committed to working through these changes in a careful and sensitive way.
“All affected employees have been briefed by their line manager today. Accord and Unite were consulted prior to this announcement and will continue to be consulted.”