1.12 SBS has significantly increased productivity and reduced costs within the NS&I business. It has reduced the number of staff transferred to it in April 1999 from 4,100 to some 2,000 although the volume of work, some 50 million transactions a year, has remained the same. These transactions have been delivered with improved service levels, increased speed of response, high accuracy levels with improved access and choice of products which are now more aligned to customer needs.
1.13 SBS has re-deployed 650 of the 2,100 staff, no longer required for NS&I work, on third party work. Five hundred and fifty are employed on work for a retail bank, fifty on work for Siemens Accounting Services and fifty on work for the Passport Service. Of the remainder no longer employed on NS&I work, 1,200 took voluntary early release and 250 were released through natural wastage. In transferring staff from the public to the private sector, SBS needed to manage the expectations of staff carefully as failure to have done so could have affected staff morale and even led to resistance to change. Staff have adapted to the new ways of working, and SBS's success in achieving this is demonstrated by the fall in levels of absenteeism to between three and four per cent6, compared to eight per cent at the start of the deal. A survey published by the CBI and PPP Healthcare in 2002 found that 3.1 per cent of total working time was lost in the UK in 2001 indicating SBS has brought NS&I's operations in line with average performance nationally.
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6 The percentage of total working time lost.