London, Sept. 22: Norwich Union today announced a decision to outsource 760 more jobs to India, immediately sparking a new row with the trade unions.

The insurance group, which has moved 3,700 jobs to India since last year, said the quality of service in India compared with that available in the UK ?can be better?.

Mike Kirsch, operations director of Norwich Union Life, which is owned by its parent company, Aviva, was determined to remain competitive.

?Offshoring is a well-established strategy for Aviva which provides flexibility and efficiency and enables the company to maintain the quality of service which customers demand,? he explained.

?We have identified areas we think can successfully operate out of India,? he said. ?We are doing this in a progressive way with minimal impact on our staff.?

He admitted that a ?small number? of Norwich Union?s eight million UK customers had complained about jobs being outsourced to India, either on principle or about service quality.

But he added: ?We spend a lot of money tracking performance and we find that service quality is consistent with the UK and can be better.?

Gary Withers, Norwich Union Life?s chief executive, said: ?We operate in very competitive markets where customers continually seek better value for money and quality of service. The experience of our existing offshore operations shows that the service levels in India continue to match those that we achieve in our UK operations.?

He went on: ?Expanding our offshore operations will give us the increased capacity we need. We expect to conclude our offshoring plans by the end of 2007, by which time we anticipate that we will have up to 7,000 roles offshore servicing our existing UK businesses.?

Withers said: ?We recognise that this is a period of great uncertainty and will do everything we can to support staff during this time and ensure that they are kept fully informed throughout the process.?

Norwich Union revealed there would be 150 compulsory redundancies in York and Norwich because of the decision to offshore business to India and Sri Lanka ? the latter will take 190 jobs.

The 760 new jobs in India will involve work in life and pensions and general insurance businesses in mainly back office administrative roles while those in Sri Lanka will deal with financial support.

Firms say the total savings from employing staff in India is 40 per cent.

David Fleming, national officer at Amicus, the white collar union opposed to outsourcing, said: ?Norwich Union have at last revealed their true intentions, which is to reduce the total UK workforce by 25 per cent by 2007. This points to a bleak future for the UK financial services industry as a whole.?

He warned: ?We will not accept compulsory redundancies as a consequence of offshoring in any company and that will be fundamental to our negotiations with Norwich Union. We expect the company to ensure there is maximum opportunity for retraining, job mobility and skills development for all staff affected.?

He added: ?The financial services employees across the UK will be bracing themselves as Amicus expects thousands more redundancies as companies are forced to show their offshoring hand.?