Half of agency’s London employees will also be moved out of the capital

The Housing Corporation is to cut up to 70 jobs and move half of its workers out of London as part of the government’s shake-up of the civil service.

The job losses and relocations – due to be announced this week as Housing Today went to press – are a response to calls by chancellor Gordon Brown to cut 100,000 civil service jobs. The Lyons review, published in July, also recommended that 20,000 civil servants be moved away from the South-east. Between 50 and 70 jobs will go at the corporation, which is between 8% and 12% of its 570 staff.

About half of employees in the central London HQ will be relocated once job cuts have been made. There are currently about 145 staff in the Tottenham Court Road office.

The corporation’s trade unions Amicus and Unison may ballot members for strike action, particularly if the Public and Commercial Services Union – which went on strike over the cuts proposed in the Gershon review on 5 November – calls for further industrial action from its members.

When similar staff cuts were outlined by the Department for Work & Pensions, unions won the concession that there would be no compulsory redundancies in the department for three months.

The corporation has not yet released a breakdown of which departments will face cuts but it is understood that the information systems department could take the worst hit.

There have been delays in implementing a new IT system and unions fear staff losses will exacerbate that. They are also worried that remaining staff will be overloaded with work.

A breakdown of how many jobs will be lost through early retirement, redundancy and staff leaving in the normal manner is also unavailable at the moment.

A spokesman for the corporation said: “Our board will be considering detailed options on 14 December. We have given as much information to staff as we can at this stage, to help them prepare for future consultation.

“Whatever decisions are made, we will be offering all staff whatever level of support they feel they would require.”