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National Press Release:Lloyds Announces Closure Of Entire C&G Branch Network
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Date: 9th Jun 2009
Lloyds Announces Closure Of Entire C&G Branch Network And Hundreds More Redundancies (Total Cuts: 1660)
Lloyds Banking Group has announced today that it is to close all 164 of its Cheltenham & Gloucester branches, with the jobs of all 928 staff being made redundant. The closures will take place on 6th November 2009.
In addition to C&G branch closures, further reorganisations and hundreds more job losses will take place across the Bank’s Mortgages business (also affecting its Halifax, Intelligent Finance and Scottish Widows brands) with many more to follow, including plans to operate from far fewer than its current 26 operational and support sites.
Further job cuts have also been announced today in other parts of Lloyds, as the Bank continues to remove overlapping and duplicated activities, following the merging of the HBOS and Lloyds TSB banks earlier this year. In all, 1,655 redundancies are being announced today.
These latest job reductions follow last week’s announcement of 510 redundancies in the Bank’s Retail Banking Division and bring to over five thousand the total number of job losses so far announced over the past two months as a consequence of the integration of the HBOS and Lloyds TSB banks. Many thousands more redundancies are expected, with some analysts predicting that over 25,000 jobs will eventually be slashed.
Large-Scale Redundancies In UK ... But Bank Insists Upon Retaining Its ‘Jobs To India’ Strategy
Despite making thousands of jobs in the UK redundant, Lloyds’ top management remains committed to its ‘Jobs To India’ policy.
It currently employs over 5,000 staff in India, including 635 engaged directly supporting the Mortgages business. Whilst Lloyds has said it intends to close significant numbers of its Mortgage operations sites in the UK (currently 26), it refuses to return to the UK work from its Mortgages operations in Mumbai and Kolkata (in India).
LTU – the largest trade union representing staff working in the Lloyds Banking Group - believes it is wholly unacceptable that the Bank is refusing to return jobs to the UK, where it could help safeguard the jobs of its existing staff. Having propped up the Bank over recent months, Tax Payers will now also have to bear the burden of unemployment and social security costs that could be reduced substantially if the Bank returned work from India to the UK.
Union Comments
Steve Tatlow, Assistant General Secretary at LTU has said:
"There is no justification for making C&G Branch Staff compulsorily redundant. There are Lloyds TSB and HBOS branches close to all C&G Branches and we are insisting that staff in those branches be invited to apply for voluntary redundancy before any C&G staff are made compulsorily redundant”.
"It is wholly unacceptable that at a time when Lloyds is planning to make redundant many thousands of staff working for C&G, Mortgages and in Head Office, it refuses to abandon its ‘Jobs to India’ policy. Lloyds should immediately return to the UK the thousands of jobs it has previously offshored to India, thereby reducing the scale of compulsory redundancies.”
"The Government must use its 43% shareholding in the Lloyds Banking Group to insist that the Bank drop its ‘Jobs to India’ policy in order to protect the interests of its Staff, the UK Economy and those communities at risk of the consequences of large-scale job reductions”.
About Lloyds TSB Group Union (LTU)
Lloyds TSB Group Union (LTU) is the largest independent trade union representing staff working in the Lloyds Banking Group, with well over 40,000 members. In large parts of the Bank, LTU represents over 90% of all managers and staff.
For More Information
Full details on these job reductions are available at www.ltu.co.uk/newsletters/17.
If you would like more information, you should contact Steve Tatlow on 01234 262868 or email to SteveTatlow@ltu.co.uk.
Steve Tatlow
Assistant General Secretary
Lloyds TSB Group Union
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