Standard Life has decided to move away from having branch offices and intends to merge into six new service centres around the country. The new centres are said to be in Bristol, Manchester, Brentwood, Leeds, Glasgow and Edinburgh.
There are thought to be around 250 administrative staff affected by the proposed streamlining although 50 are expected to move to one of the new centres. The remaining 200 now face redundancy.
Our View
Standard Life is probably the most administratively efficient product provider that we deal with. Whilst them moving from branch office operations to service centres is slightly unnerving, if they retain the majority of their existing staff and enhance their administrative procedures further, there should be no problems.