Twenty-five staff to leave Aviva's Birmingham office

Twenty-five of Aviva’s Birmingham commercial division have taken voluntary redundancy.

The redundancies are part of a voluntary programme throughout the regional offices launched in June, and which come into effect next month.

The redundancies will leave the office with 140 staff.

In June, Aviva announced it would close two offices in Northampton and Luton, with 41 staff affected, and open a new office in Cambridge.

At the time, Aviva’s intermediary and partnerships director Janice Deakin said the insurer was looking at its footprint as part of the strategy focus on improving its service for brokers.

An Aviva spokesman said: “In June we announced changes to our general insurance trading centres so that we are able to be more responsive, and make clear, quick decisions for our brokers.

“In order to minimise redundancies, we offered staff in these centres the opportunity to apply for voluntary redundancy. In Birmingham this has resulted in 25 people taking voluntary redundancy.”

The redundancies are separate from the staff consultation announced by Aviva’s executive chairman John McFarlane in July which could result in up to 800 jobs being axed as part of a cost cutting drive to make £400m in savings by 2014.