Barclays
has signed a six-year IT outsourcing deal with consultancy firm Accenture
valued at more than £400m.
The
contract to outsource the bank’s application development division is one of the
largest UK outsourcing deals this year and follows at least nine months of
negotiations.
Nine
hundred IT staff will transfer to Accenture over the next year and there will
be no compulsory redundancies in the first two years of the contract.
Barclays
will retain overall responsibility for IT strategy development and will
maintain staffing in selected areas.
Keith
Brookes, national secretary for banking union Unifi, which represents IT staff
at Barclays, said the union was happy with the deal although negotiations had
been tough.
