The Welsh Liberal Democrat Assembly Member for South Wales West, Peter Black, has urged Remploy to reconsider their decision to close the Shared Services Centre in Swansea, which would result in twenty one job loses for the City.
Employees at site currently deal the administration associated with purchases, invoices and expenses for employment services expenses. Remploy plan to centralise the operation in their Leeds branch, which currently employs only half a dozen employees working in the field of credit control. The scheme will lead to half a dozen new jobs being created in the North East; however 21 people would be made redundant in Swansea.
"I have written to the Chief Executive of Remploy asking him to reconsider his decision" said Mr Black, "Remploy have not failed to put forward an adequate business case for this move. This is especially so as they are currently planning on increasing the furniture production part of their business and in order to do this it is clear the Swansea Shared Services Centre will have additional work so as to process payments and invoices. They have not explained how they intend to do this added work, plus the work currently being carried out at the Swansea centre, from one small site in Leeds with a quarter of the staff."
"If they wanted to centralise the operation, it would make more sense to move the six current jobs in Leeds to Swansea. It is a bigger site with room to accommodate additional staff. It is also the case that staff based in Swansea have the skills to accommodate work currently carried out in Leeds. I have also written to the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Peter Hain, urging him to use his position to stand up for Wales, and also to the Welsh Assembly Minister for Economic Development, asking him to intervene so we can try and keep these crucially important jobs in Swansea."
