Lloyds cuts back-office jobs as part of strategy review

Lloyds Banking Group has cut a number of jobs across the UK as part of the next stage in its strategic review.

The high street bank cut 490 back office jobs across several of its sites across the UK as part of the third wave of chief executive António Horta-Osório's ongoing strategy, it was revealed on Wednesday.

Lloyds also created 220 new roles, resulting in a net reduction of 270 jobs in the group's operational and support teams.

Last spring, Lloyds announced plans to remove around 1,230 jobs across eight business divisions while simultaneously creating roughly 925 new roles, following around 9,000 job cuts in the previous round of plan.

Workers at number of the bank’s divisions and departments are affected, including sites in Fareham, Birmingham, London, Halifax and Chester.

In Lloyds last set of quarterly results, it reported statutory profits before tax down 7% to £1.82bn due to higher restructuring costs, taking nine-month PBT to £4.93bn, up 10% year-on-year.

Trade union Unite objected to the cuts, especially against the backdrop of the continual use of agency staff and contractors.

Rob MacGregor, Unite national officer, said: “The loss of a further 292 committed and hardworking staff from Lloyds Banking Group is appalling. Unite is seeking urgent clarification about the future of the remaining workforce at the impacted sites."

He added: "Unite is demanding that LBG cease the job cuts and closures in order to fully review the number of temporary and contract staff within the company."

A Lloyds spokesperson said the changes came as the bank continued to "evolve and adapt to the changing needs of our customers", while the new roles included "up-skilling" of staff as part of a £3bn investment over the next three years in technology and people.

“The group’s policy is always to use natural turnover and to redeploy people wherever possible to retain their expertise and knowledge within the group," the spokesperson added, saying that compulsory redundancies "will always be a last resort".