Barclays agrees staff transfer terms for £450m Accenture deal

Barclays bank is close to finalising a potential £450m offshore outsourcing deal with Accenture after agreeing redundancy and transfer terms for 1,400 staff.

silicon.com broke the story last year that Barclays had selected Accenture over IBM for a six-year outsourcing deal for the bank's ISS 'build services' application development group, which would see up to half the positions move offshore to India.

Since then, Barclays has agreed a 'globalisation framework' with the financial services union Unifi with agreement on how to handle redundancies and the promise to involve staff early on in any outsourcing discussions.

A Unifi union newsletter seen by silicon.com reveals that, following lengthy and detailed negotiations, terms for the transfer of staff under TUPE arrangements and based on the Barclays 'globalisation framework' have been agreed.

Up to half of the ISS jobs could be moved abroad, although no final figure has yet been given but the bank has guaranteed no compulsory redundancies for two years and agreed to use a voluntary redundancy 'register' to manage any losses.

Accenture has also given assurances that for the jobs remaining in the UK it will continue with Barclays' multi-site locations for ISS at Radbroke, Poole and Bexleyheath with no forced relocation for staff.

Retraining allowances of up to £2,000 will also be available to the affected staff to aid redeployment within Barclays.

Keith Brookes, national secretary of Unifi, described the deal as "excellent" in a note to staff. "There are job losses built into this transfer, and as with all job losses Unifi would prefer them not to happen," he said. "However, both Accenture and Barclays have provided full transparency and there are bespoke arrangements in place for dealing with the job losses - there will be no hidden surprises post-transition."

A spokesman for Barclays confirmed the agreement with staff but said a contract with Accenture has not yet been signed.

"We are still talking to Accenture on a number of commercial aspects but we recognised the need to discuss it with the staff at an early stage. Reassuring and keeping our staff informed is extremely important to us," he said.

Accenture declined to comment.