900 jobs to go at Norwich Union

Up to 900 jobs are to go in the Norwich Union's UK general insurance and life and pensions businesses, including the closure of its life and pensions administration office in Cheadle.

Around 600 of the jobs will be compulsory redundancies across the life and general insurance businesses. Norwich Union has said that "where possible" alternative roles will be found for some staff.

The majority of jobs affected are at four locations - Norwich, Perth, Worthing and Cheadle - although there will be some minor changes in other areas across the country. The Cheadle office will be closed by the end of March 2004.

The changes follow a review across all areas of the business to achieve "greater efficiency and effectiveness", as well as to further strengthen the focus on delivering customer service.

These changes – which follow the recently announced reorganisation of the senior management team – are designed to re-align business operations to reflect the new structure.

Norwich Union and parent company Aviva employ around 33,000 staff in the UK and "the majority of staff will be unaffected by these changes".

In a statement the company said: "There is minimal impact on customer-facing staff. These announcements are not connected with the recent opening of an Aviva call centre operation in India."

Commenting on today’s announcement, Patrick Snowball, group executive director, Aviva plc, said: “We operate in an extremely competitive market and have to continually look at ways to achieve greater efficiency and effectiveness.

“Making decisions that affect our staff is always difficult, but we believe these changes are necessary to adapt to changing market conditions and make our business fit for the future.”

The review of the general insurance business will be completed for most staff by the end of August.

(GMcG)