Lloyds has denied that its strategy to offshore IT roles to
Indian workers is creating a shortage of certain types of
skills.
A report in the Daily Mail said Indian workers were being
brought into the UK to replace UK IT workers. It said there are
fears at the bank that workers coming in are not all up to the
job.
Internal documents, seen by the Daily Mail, revealed that
managers at Lloyds are concerned about knowledge gaps of some
computer specialists. Another document referred to the inability of
suppliers hiring from the sub-continent to provide Lloyds with
system designers with the necessary skills to perform their jobs
properly.
But Lloyds said the programme to offshore IT jobs is not new and
does not create a skills shortage.
"We continue to outsource areas of IT work to companies based
overseas. At any one time some of the staff from these companies
will be based in the UK to deliver aspects of our IT projects. This
is standard industry practice," said a Lloyds statement.
It said that offshoring fills skills gaps rather than creates
them. "The staff from the companies we work with provide a real
addition to the knowledge and technical skills of our IT
division."
The Lloyds Banking Group Union, which has
asked the Bank to abandon its Offshoring Policy in numerous
occasions, said offshoring is accelerating and is leading to
pay cuts in the UK, as well as job cuts.
"Over the past 12 months, the Lloyds Banking Group has not only
increased to over 5,000 the number of jobs it has now transferred
to India - in the process, replacing existing UK-based staff - but
it has also been flying in to the UK hundreds of workers from India
who have replaced existing UK-based IT staff and contributed to
forcing down pay levels of IT contractor staff."