In his speech last year at SIBOS 2019 – ‘Transforming Through People’, Mr Antonio Horta-Osorio, Group Chief Executive said: “The first two strategic cycles were difficult for our colleagues. It was a period of huge change, regular restructuring and frequent uncertainty”. It may come as a surprise to Mr Horta-Osorio but the third strategic cycle is no different to the other two. 780 staff including, Bank Managers, Banking Consultants and Customer Services Assistants in the retail networks who are will be going through a selection process in the next few weeks, are testament to that. The constant dead-hand of job cuts and branch closures, mostly in the ‘left-behind’ towns and villages constantly referred to by the new Government, is destroying the fabric of Lloyds Banking Group and Mr Horta-Osorio can’t see it because he doesn’t know what to do next. That’s why most commentators are now increasingly talking about a post Horta-Osorio world. He came, he cut and then did nothing.
There comes a time when you’ve got to stop cutting costs and start growing the business. Any idiot can cut costs but Mr Horta-Osorio has failed to show he’s more than a one trip pony. Where is the business growth? In 2019, total net income shrank by more than 4% to £17.1bn. He’s produced a blank cheque, in the form of a PPI give away, of more than £20bn, most of it to claims management companies. He’s been paid £50m+ since he joined Lloyds and staff have a right to expect more.
We have said it before but the Group should publish how many staff it is going to need and should open up voluntary severance registers for each division. The Bank can then identify the jobs that are going with the staff who want to leave. Staff that want to stay should be offered retraining and guaranteed new jobs on their existing terms and conditions.
Redundancy Terms
The first stage of calculating entitlement involves working out an individual’s weekly earnings upon which Redundancy Payments would be based. The total pay figure is then divided by 52 to arrive at a weekly figure.
The formula for calculating Pre 2012 Severance Pay is 2 weeks’ pay for every year of service under age 22, 4 weeks’ pay for every year of service aged between 22 to 40, 6 weeks’ pay for every year of service aged 41 and over. Only the last 20 years service is used in the calculation and payment is capped at a maximum of 104 weeks’ pay.
The first £30,000 of any Redundancy Payment is paid tax-free. Severance payments apply to all staff. Payment is based on each individual’s length of service in the Bank, up to the date of termination rounded up to whole years based on age at last birthday. For example, service of 12 years 1 month at date of leaving would be rounded up to 13 years.
For those staff who joined the Bank after 1st January 2012 the severance terms are calculated differently. For each year of service under the age of 22 staff get 1.375 weeks’ pay per year of service. Between the ages of 22-40 staff get 2.75 weeks’ pay per year of service and 4.125 weeks’ pay per year of service over the age of 41. Service is rounded down to the nearest whole number of years and takes account of age as at the last birthday.
The total value of any payment under these terms is capped at £165,000.
Members with any questions on the latest round of job losses should contact the Union’s Advice Team on 01234 262868 (Option 1).