Following the reorganisation of its platform teams, details of which were announced on 6th February, the majority of IT jobs in Lloyds Banking Group will now be done by staff working overseas, mainly in India.
Think about that for a moment.
96% of Lloyds assets are based in the UK. It’s the biggest digital bank with 26 million predominantly UK customers. Almost all of its profits are generated from the UK. It waxes lyrical about ‘Helping Britain Prosper’ but the very jobs that are going to be the lifeblood of our future economic prosperity are being shipped off to the India to save money.
In a confidential presentation seen by the Union, Lloyds has stipulated that: “Around 60% of Platform FTEs must be permanent. Of the remaining 40% (non-perm), a minimum of 90% must be located internationally.”.
So, a 60:40 split in IT jobs between the UK and India. However, even that’s not strictly true.
Last year, Lloyds announced that it was recruiting 600 permanent IT specialists at its new technology centre in the Knowledge City district of Hyderabad, India. Those 600 staff will be included in the 60% of Lloyds IT staff that must be permanent. Of the 40% of IT staff that will be on non-permanent contracts, 90% of those will be based mainly in India.
Lloyds said last year that it was: “unable to give a final breakdown of the impacts until we’ve been through the selection process”. Lloyds now knows exactly how many jobs are going. Equally, it knows where those jobs are moving to and that includes how many are going to India.
It needs to be transparent with staff and the public; trying to hide the true figures is not going to work.
She Speaks
Responding to the Union’s recent letter on the length of time it’s taking to complete her investigation into whether Lloyds covered up a £1 billion banking fraud at HBOS Reading, Dame Linda Dobbs has said that she’s still “collecting evidence” almost 7 years after she started her work. The Second World War only lasted 6 years and 1 day!
Dame Linda said that progress was being obstructed by the “the availability of witnesses and by delays in receiving their evidence or relevant documentation.”. Who are those witnesses? Assuming those witnesses are current or ex-employees of Lloyds Banking Group, Dame Linda needs to write to the Chairman of Lloyds detailing those individuals who are hampering her review. The Lloyds Board should then threaten to withhold share options to those employees if they don’t cooperate! That will solve the problem.
That said, Dame Linda’s had 7 years to sort this problem out and complaining about the issue now, when she’s done nothing publicly to sort it out, seems a bit of a lame excuse. Anthony Stansfield, the police and crime commissioner for Thames Valley when the force pursued the criminal case against the ex-Lloyds employees, said: “Her review will not report until all the guilty have either retired or died. Many of the victims have died in abject poverty.”.
We have also written to Helen Baldwin MP, Chair of the Treasury Committee, asking her recall Dame Linda and Mr Charlie Nunn, Group Chief Executive, to explain what’s going on and why it’s taken so long to get to the truth. We will see what she’s got to say.
We will be returning to these issues in future Newsletters. In the meantime, members with any questions on this Newsletter should contact the Union’s Advice Team on 01234 262868 (choose Option 1).
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