Lloyds staff received another £500 cost of living payment in December. That’s on top of the £1,000 they have already received. TSB staff have got just £500 so far and have to wait until next February to get the next £500 payment.
TSB should increase that payment immediately to £1,000.
TSB recently announced a number of cosmetic changes to its reward package. Those amounted to moving money from one pot and putting it into another pot. What TSB staff need is a pay increase in line with RPI inflation which is currently running at 14%. Last year the average pay increase in TSB was just 4%, when inflation was at 7.5%. On the bank’s own figures, that meant every TSB member of staff saw their pay fall relative to the cost of living. That can’t be allowed to happen again this year.
Lloyds staff, in a very complicated set of pay proposals, have been offered increases ranging from 5% for the highest grades, to up to 13% for the lowest grades, when you take into account the one-off cash payment in December. We would expect the lowest graded staff in TSB to be get similar increases given what happened last year.
Anything less than that will not be acceptable to TBU.
TSB’s Fined £49 Million
In 102 pages, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), which together with the Prudential Regulatory Authority fined TSB £48,650,000 for operational risk management and governance failures relating to the bank’s IT upgrade programme in 2018, eviscerates the TSB Board and senior members of the executive committee in place at the time the disaster happened. Had no agreement been reached that fine could have been £69,000,000. The cost of the disaster runs into hundreds of millions of pounds. £73 million was spent just compensating customers.
The FCA report concluded that:
“The direct causes of the technical problems experienced during the Migration Incident substantially related to issues with IT configuration, capacity and coding. However, there were also a number of failings at points during the Migration Programme, and excessive operational risk ahead of the migration by the point of MME (Main Migration Event). These failings were present in planning, testing, risk management, and outsourcing. Risks were unrecognised or not adequately dealt with, and there were certain governance failures in escalation and challenge. Consequently, TSB went ahead with MME having not undertaken sufficient contingency planning that would have made it adequately prepared for the events that took place post-MME, which had serious negative consequences for some of TSB’s customers”.
The TSB Board, who were ultimately responsible for the largest IT disaster in UK corporate history, got every major decision wrong. One current member of the TSB Board was also a member of the Banking Executive Committee (BEC) at the time the disaster was unfolding.
In last year’s report and accounts, TSB’s Board said:
“In 2018, the Committee took the decision to delay the payment of the vested but as yet unpaid tranches of the Sabadell Integration Awards (SIA) and other awards due to vest in March 2022, subject to the outcome of both internal and external regulatory investigations into the post migration issues and subsequent consideration by the Committee in light of any findings. This decision continues to subsist”.
Given the FCA and PRA fine, the TSB Board should commit to putting those unpaid awards for Paul Pester and his BEC colleagues towards a further cost of living increase for staff. No member of the BEC or Board in place at the time the IT disaster happened should get a penny. We will be writing to Mr Nick Prettejohn, Chairman of TSB, asking him to confirm that the Board will not be making any outstanding bonus payments to Mr Pester and his executive colleagues. Members shouldn’t feel too sorry for him. Despite everything that happened, he walked away with a pay-out off at least £1.68 million.
The on-target Variable Pay Award (VPA) of 10% which is paid to all staff in March 2023 should be paid in full. We will not accept any reduction in the amount of that award because of the FCA and PRA fine. TSB’s IT disaster was a failure of executive leadership and they should own it. It was left to hardworking staff to put it right and that’s what they did.
Members with any questions on this should contact the Union’s Advice Team on 01234 716029 (choose Option 1).
MEMBERS SHOULD PASS THIS NEWSLETTER ON TO THEIR COLLEAGUES SO THEY TOO CAN BENEFIT FROM THE ONLY INDEPENDENT TRADE UNION IN TSB.