Clifford Chance to outsource 300 jobs to India

London, Oct 3 (UNI) Clifford Chance (CC), a top legal firm is set to outsource 300 support staff jobs from the UK to India over the next four years, in a cost-cutting move that will save 30 million pounds.

The yesterday's move will see the firm establish an office in Delhi and comes as part of Managing Partner David Childs costs-cutting drive, which saw him pledge in 2004 to cut the firm's costs by 40 million pounds.

The firm will now embark upon a consultation period with support staff initially in finance and IT to identify those doing jobs which can be conducted overseas. The firm admitted there are likely to be redundancies as a result.

The move differs from the firm's outsourcing initiative, which it began last year and which sees some document production run by outsourcing company Integreon in India, as it will be running the office itself.

While the firm is largely looking at accounting and IT functions, the move could affect any support staff, with a spokesperson for the firm commenting: ''The criteria is: does this job need to be done in this office?'' Managing Partner David Childs said: ''If we proceed with this proposal, it would be a continuation of the process we started over two years ago of standardising and centralising many of our routine business processes.'' ''In common with many of our clients, we are looking for ways of working that provide a more flexible cost model, greater responsiveness to our client needs, in addision to increased efficiency and a better business continuity capability,'' Mr Childs added.

UNI XC DKS VV2005