In the fifth phase of the bank’s branch closure programme, seven branches at the Bank of Scotland and three at Halifax will also have their doors closed. The announcement comes shortly after the Chancellor decided to delay the sale of a final tranche of Lloyds Bank shares, owing to ‘market volatility’.
Lloyds said 170 new roles would be created across the retail, commercial banking and group legal departments.
In October 2014, Lloyds’ chief executive António Horta Osório said it was expected that the bank would cut ‘around 9,000 roles from across the business over a three-year period’.
The latest job losses include a reduction of 140 assistant bank manager (ABM) roles and 10 roles within the Lloyds Community Bank central support teams which includes the managing director’s office, commercial director’s office, mortgage director’s office and planning and development director’s office.
Last year, Lloyds closed 46 branches and removed the role of senior personal banking advisers from the organisation.
According to Lloyds, a number of factors including the impact of new technology and the introduction of ‘simpler and slicker’ processes had led the bank to deem it necessary to axe 140 ABM roles.
Accord, the union representing staff at the bank, said it would do ‘everything possible’ to avoid compulsory redundancies and support staff impacted by the announcements.
Accord’s general secretary Ged Nichols said: “The job security situation in UK banks is getting ever more difficult. Staff in Lloyds Banking Group have been living with this worry since 2009 and the job losses aren’t over yet.
“We and Lloyds Banking Group have a good record of managing these issues through turnover and voluntary redundancy but it gets progressively more difficult. One of the Security of Employment Agreements in Lloyds is due to expire at the end of this year; our members need it to be extended until at least the end of 2017 and we’re asking Lloyds Banking Group to agree to this today.”
A spokesperson for Lloyds said: “Lloyds Banking Group is committed to working through these changes with employees 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.
“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. Where it is necessary for employees to leave the company, it will look to achieve this by offering voluntary redundancy. Compulsory redundancies will always be a last resort.”
