Garlands to close site as 90 jobs set to go

Jan 7 2009 Evening Gazette

UP to 90 jobs are set to go at one of Teesside’s major call centres as the economic grip tightens on Britain’s struggling service sector.

Garlands Call Centres, based in Hartlepool, also said it would close one of its Tees Valley bases in the coming months following the reduction in head count.

It follows restructuring by Vodafone - one of Garlands’ key clients - which recently announced it was to shave £1bn off its operating costs. Garlands will lose the contract to run Vodafone’s account and service management duties, but will retain other service areas for the mobile phone giant.

Consultation has already begun with Garlands’ employees.

Chief executive Chey Garland said: “Garlands has partnered Vodafone for over 10 years, delivering a wide range of contact centre-based services. I strongly believe it to be one of the longest and most successful outsourced partnerships in the UK contact centre industry.

“As the result of a recent restructuring exercise undertaken by Vodafone’s customer service team, it has been decided that the account and service management duties currently performed by Garlands will be distributed to other areas of Vodafone’s contact centre estate in 2009.

“We have been informed that the move is no reflection on the quality of work delivered by Garlands’ dedicated teams, which continues to be received favourably.

“We have received assurances from Vodafone that other service areas - credit and risk, telesales, and Pay As You Talk - will be unaffected by the change.”

Garlands will be closing its Preston Farm site from mid to late March and moving all existing Preston Farm operations to other Garlands’ sites, which include Middlesbrough, Hartlepool and South Shields, which opened last year.

Garlands, which employs around 3,000 staff in the North-east, was founded by Ms Garland in 1987 as a one-woman debt collection agency operating from a tiny attic room in Middlesbrough.

It scooped the Company of the Year award at last year’s Tees Valley Business Awards for the second time.