Uncertain fate for goldfish staff

By Rob Virtue on May 15, 2008 9:00 AM |

Tagged with:

Barclays,
Goldfish

GOLDFISH staff affected by the planned closure of the Canary Wharf office have been told by Barclays that it would do its best to find them new roles.

Barclays, which bought Goldfish in February this year, announced it was proposing to shed 90 head office jobs at Hertsmere House on the Wharf, as well as 900 at its call centre in Cumbernauld, Scotland.

A spokeswoman for Barclaycard said: “The idea is that all the functions will be integrated with Barclaycard.
It’s just proposals at the moment, but if it goes through, we will do our best to find positions within Barclays for those 90 people.”

The Barclaycard head office is based in Northampton but the spokeswoman said the company’s offices in Churchill Place would be the more obvious choice to redeploy staff.

She said redundancies could not be ruled out at this stage, but added there would be discussions with each worker affected to go through their options.

A three-month consultation began last week and she said more would become clear after that point.

The Docklands staff for Goldfish carry out head office roles such as marketing, management, audit and finance. The office space at Hertsmere House will continue to be used by the Barclays group if the changes go ahead.

Amer Sajed, managing director of UK Cards at Barclaycard, said: “I understand that this proposal is difficult for the colleagues potentially impacted and we will make a comprehensive package of advice and support available to them if the proposals go ahead.

“We consider that this is the right strategy in the context of the highly competitive industry in which we operate.”