430 North-East jobs cut as npower makes 1,400 redundant

Offices in Thornaby, near Stockton and in Peterlee will close with some staff being transferred to the firm's main call centre at Rainton Bridge, Houghton le Spring, County Durham. 

Some of Npower’s call centre staff will be outsourced to Capita.

Jobs are also being cut at the firm's offices in Stoke-on-Trent, Leeds and Oldbury in the West Midlands.   

Back office administration roles, such as checking meter readings against customers’ bills, are being sent to India using Tata Consultancy Services (TCS).

The proposed changes would save on current customer service costs, at a time of external pressures on energy prices, Npower said in a statement. 

Colin Smith, the GMB union's northern region senior organiser, said: "GMB will vigorously campaign against the offshoring of jobs to India because it has absolutely nothing to do with customer service and everything to do with cost."

The announcement comes days before Npower increases its average household gas and electricity bills by about 10 per cent. 

In total, across the North-East, Npower employs 3,950 people.

Under these proposals around 430 people in the region would be made redundant, subject to consultation, around 540 would continue to work in the business but employed by Capita* and Npower would still directly employ almost 3,000 people in the North-East.

The impact on each North-East site is as follows:

• Rainton Bridge 

There are 2,200 people based in Rainton and overall numbers employed here would increase to around 2,400 under these proposals.

These changes would be made up of around 430 back office roles being made redundant, around 410 people moving to Capita in Peterlee* and around 1,130 people moving into Rainton from Peterlee and Thornaby.

• Peterlee

Npower has about 1,250 employees in Peterlee divided between three offices: Tyne House, Tees House and Wear House. There will be no redundancies among these employees but around 110 will transfer to Capita* and around 630 will move to Rainton. Tyne House, which has around 500 employees, would be unaffected by this review. Tees House would close, and it is proposed that the ownership of Wear House would transfer to Capita.

• Thornaby

There are about 500 employees at npower’s office in Thornaby. This office would close in June 2014 but all the roles based here would be secure: employees here would be offered a position elsewhere in the North-East, mainly at Npower’s headquarters in Rainton. 

These employees would also be offered support with transport for three years. During consultation, individual circumstances will be considered and people may be given the option of moving over to Capita* and working from Wear House or taking voluntary redundancy, the firm said. 

Npower will now be undertaking a 60 day consultation programme with the 430 affected employees at Rainton.

Enhanced redundancy terms would be offered and there will also be a full package of on-site advice and support.

Gareth Pickles, Npower’s customer service director, said: “Today’s announcement would mean a lot of changes but our commitment to the North-East remains very strong - there’ll still be around three and a half thousand people in the region helping npower customers every day.

“As a business, we’re operating in extremely tough times and we’ve had to look at what’s right for the long term future of the company. We also have to keep our costs as low as possible when our customers are seeing bills going up due to a range of external factors." 

* Employees will be moved to Capita under ‘TUPE’. This is the abbreviation for the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006. TUPE provides protection to employees when their employer changes following the transfer of an undertaking, preserving the terms and conditions of employees who are transferred to a new employer.