Friends Prov to cut customer service jobs

The company intends to close its Manchester Express Building offices and merge its head office sites into a single operation based at 55 Spring Gardens. Friends Provident expects the process to be completed by 31 December 2009, with redundancies taking place in phases until the Manchester Express Building has been vacated. Affected staff, mostly those employed in customer services and IT, will enter a consultation process to determine the exact number of job cuts. Simon Clamp, UK managing director, pledged to minimise the effect on customers, and says: "We remain committed to the serv...