We employ some 54,000 people worldwide in a new structure comprising four regions: the UK, Europe, Asia Pacific and North America. Together with Morley and our Group Centre function, we are experiencing growth and sharing best practices between regions. To help set up this new structure, there were a number of moves among our senior people in 2007, creating a better balance of talent across the group.

As with all major structural change, we sought to minimise the number of compulsory redundancies through voluntary turnover and redeployment, and where unavoidable redundancies occurred, we provided support to affected employees, such as the 1,000 employees who joined Swiss Re in October 2007 as part of the restructuring of Norwich Union’s life and pensions operations.

In the second half of 2007, we also announced plans to save £300 million across our UK business. Although such savings will be achieved in a variety of ways, including a reduction in marketing spend, a commitment of this magnitude has meant 140 job losses within marketing, and a further 385 roles going from our IT operation.

We take care to manage all unavoidable redundancies as sensitively as we can. For example, Aviva USA’s new headquarters in Des Moines, Iowa, required the relocation of approximately 400 positions from Quincy, Massachusetts. Outgoing staff were notified in person and given appropriate support, guidance and financial protection, while all communication was conducted in an open, honest and timely way.