National Grid has begun consulting staff about an organisational restructure.
The firm said no decisions have yet been made, but has not ruled out job losses. Staff would be allowed to apply for voluntary redundancy, the company said.
National Grid is separating out its system operator role from its wider business, after government considered its duties for carrying out policy and balancing the power system were in conflict with its broader activities, such as building interconnectors and signalling where network investment is required.
Meanwhile, regulator Ofgem plans to allow network companies less generous earnings as it develops the next regulatory price control.
Commenting on the plans, Union Prospect said “the potential scale of these redundancy plans will create great uncertainty” for members.
National Grid’s statement:
“At National Grid we are constantly looking for ways to deliver an industry leading service whilst maintaining the lowest cost to bill payers. Whilst we only represent around 3% of the average household bill, we are committed to always looking for ways to operate more efficiently.”
“As part of this process, we have begun a consultation with our employees on organisational changes that will help us become an even more cost efficient and agile business. No decisions have yet been made but this may result in redundancies and employees interested in voluntary redundancy will be able to apply
“National Grid is focused on delivering energy safely and reliably to our customers and we would like to reassure people that this work to improve our efficiency will have no impact on our ability to deliver a safe and reliable energy network.”
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