City & Guilds faces legal and industrial action over plans to cut hundreds of jobs

City & Guilds offers vocational training and education services, including certification. Photograph: Juice Images/Alamy View image in fullscreen City & Guilds offers vocational training and education services, including certification. Photograph: Juice Images/Alamy City & Guilds faces legal and industrial action over plans to cut hundreds of jobs New crisis at former vocational charity involves alleged withholding of data and breaching redundancy laws City & Guilds is facing potential legal and industrial action over claims it has been “dishonest” over plans to shed about 400 UK staff. Officials at the Unite union allege the owner of the training and qualifications body has been “unlawfully withholding key information during transfer consultations”, while also “advertising for new recruits when it is legally required to give staff at risk of redundancy first refusal”. The row represents yet another crisis at the embattled former vocational charity, whose business was acquired by the private company PeopleCert last autumn in a controversial deal that went on to trigger a statutory inquiry by the Charity Commission in January , as well as PeopleCert commissioning its own internal investigation . The investigations are understood to be considering Guardian revelations concerning a pair of City & Guilds executives receiving million-pound bonuses and sizeable salary increases after the sale. Fee hikes, big bonuses, then bosses exit: the curious case of City & Guilds privatisation Read more Unite regional officer Peter Storey said: “PeopleCert has been dishonest [about its staffing plans] from the moment it took over City & Guilds. Without significant movement from the company, this dispute will continue to escalate, including through potential legal and industrial action.” The union predicted that the round of about 75 redundancies will only be the first wave of job losses and that PeopleCert is ultimately planning to shed about one-third of its 1,300 strong UK workforce. PeopleCert said in January that: “There are no plans for compulsory redundancies in the UK.” The City & Guilds business, which was founded in 1878 by the City of London and a group of 16 livery companies to develop a national system of technical education, charges fees for its accreditations to private training businesses and has about 60% of its income “underpinned by stable government funding schemes”. Having maintained a fairly modest profile for much of its 148-year history, last year’s sale of the business to PeopleCert put City & Guilds in the spotlight. In December, the Guardian revealed how a presentation prepared for PeopleCert investors set out plans for the now-private City & Guilds to shrink its UK workforce as part of a £22m cost-cutting drive . PeopleCert informed its backers of £13m of “personnel cost synergies” that would largely be achieved by replacing departing UK staff with cheaper overseas hires. In a letter sent by Unite to PeopleCert last month, which has been