In my last Newsletter I said it couldn’t get any worse. I was wrong.
In seeking to justify its shockingly low pay increases for 2026 and 2027 for staff in Grades A-C, Lloyds Banking Group admitted it accessed the personal accounts of 36,000 members of staff to determine whether they were financially resilient or not. It then used that information to justify its low pay increases.
If that’s not a breach of the Data Protection Act, then I don’t know what is. However, instead of objecting to what Lloyds had done and how it was using that data, the two in-house lap dogs – Accord and Unite – said nothing of consequence. Instead of breaking off pay negotiations to tell their members what Lloyds had done, Accord and Unite agreed to the pay increases instead.
An Accord Representative [who we are not naming] was trying to get members to vote in its pay ballot sent an email to staff in mortgages, which was ccd into Mr. Rob West, Head of Home – Consumer Growth. We assume that Lloyds saw that email before it was sent.
The email said:
“One concerning point raised by LBG was their use of internal data to assess financial resilience. They reviewed 36,000 colleague accounts (those with 4 years’+ service) and concluded that we are more financially resilient that the general public. This was used to justify a lower pay award. Simon personally challenged this, highlighting that our loyalty in banking shouldn’t be used against us in pay negotiations. The response from LBG was “No Comment”.
It seems Simon said something but not Ged Nicholls, Accord’s General Secretary. Why didn’t he object to what Lloyds had done and how it was using that information?
I’m not going to point out the obvious stupidity in equating the financial wellbeing of Bank staff with the public generally because that will be obvious to our members, even if it wasn’t obvious to the Accord negotiators. But the much bigger issue is that Lloyds Banking Group – and we assume the trawling of staff accounts was signed off by Mr. Charlie Nunn and Ms. Sharon Doherty – had no legitimate reason accessing staff accounts without permission. Doing it to justify its pay increase is not a legitimate reason.
What else was it looking for? It’s sinister and smacks of big brother.
The fact that staff are also personal account holders doesn’t give the Bank carte blanche to do what it wants. So, for example, many staff are joint account holders with their spouses or partners. Did Lloyds get permission from those spouses or partners to access their personal bank accounts? Equally, we have represented hundreds of members who have been disciplined for accessing their own accounts at work whereas HR has been caught doing it on an industrial scale. In justifying disciplinary action against members of staff, Lloyds always quotes a breach of Section 170 of the Data Protection Act. It will be for the Information Commissioner to determine whether Lloyds has committed a major data protection breach.
The fact that the leadership of Accord and Unite didn’t protest about what Lloyds did tells you all you need to know about their lack of backbone and willingness to agree to anything.
We will be returning to this issue in our next Newsletter. In the meantime, members with any questions can contact the Union’s Bedford Office on 01234 262868 (Choose Option 1).
MEMBERS SHOULD PASS THIS NEWSLETTER ON TO THEIR COLLEAGUES IN HALIFAX & LLOYDS SO THEY TOO CAN BENEFIT FROM THE ONLY INDEPENDENT TRADE UNION IN LLOYDS BANKING GROUP.