Plans byNorwich Union's parent
companyAvivato trim £350m from its costs
will result in major cuts toNorwich Union's IT operations,
including the loss of 385 IT jobs.
The insurance firm said last week that £300m of the planned
savings would come from its UK IT operations during a two-year
restructuring programme.
Seán Egan, chief information officer at Norwich Union, said the
completion of major IT projects and a programme to consolidate the
firm's systems meant that it no longer needed to devote as many
resources to IT.
"A number of significant projects, such as the integration of
RAC into Norwich Union, are nearing their natural end, and we
therefore no longer need to maintain or upgrade old systems and
services," he said.
"We are also in the process of transferring all administration
onto a single platform across the business, which will reduce the
number of IT systems we use."
The cutbacks will affect roles in IT development, maintenance
and infrastructure services across Norwich Union and motoring
services group RAC, which the insurer bought in 2005. Project
management and business analysis roles supporting projects will
also be lost.
The company said it hoped to find some staff alternative roles
within the Aviva group. "However, due to the specialist nature of
many roles, it will not be possible to redeploy all staff, and it
is expected that there will be redundancies.
"We are operating in an increasingly changing environment and
these changes will achieve greater effectiveness across our IT
operations," said Egan.
The decision follows a review of IT across the business. The
affected staff are based mainly in Norwich and Perth.
The company said that although it was never possible to rule out
any further impact on jobs, this announcement marked the completion
of its current plans.