Energy giant Npower is to axe an unspecified number of jobs at its Swindon head office after it announced an annual £106m loss compared to a profit last year of £174m.
Npower said it will cut 2,400 jobs from across its UK sites over the next two years – around a fifth of its total workforce. No breakdown of the numbers by location has yet been released by the firm. 
The troubled firm, part of Germany’s RWE group, employs around 1,000 people at its headquarters at Windmill Hill out of a UK total of 11,500, of which 6,668 are full time posts.
Staff there had already faced an anxious wait for news about which jobs would face the axe following media reports last weekend. The picture does not appear much clearer following this week’s announcement.
Apart from the already-announced closure of an office in Burton-on-Trent, which employs around 200 staff, Npower said this morning the rest of the job losses were not “site specific”.
Npower’s Swindon office, pictured below, is home to its retail energy management, communications, procurement, property sustainability, finance, Human Resources (HR), compliance, legal and executive teams.
RWE this morning said a "radical restructuring" of Npower would now take place following the loss of 351,000 customers – nearly 7% of its total number – over the past year, mainly due to billing problems. 
Last December Npower, one of the UK’s Big Six energy firms, was fined £26m by energy industry watchdogs for overcharging customers and failing to handle customer complaints properly. It is the largest-ever fine for a British power utility. RWE has also been hit by low wholeslae energy prices.
Npower chief executive Paul Coffey described the results as “extremely disappointing”.
He added: “They show a business that tried to do too much, too soon while not focusing enough on the fundamentals in a constantly changing market.
“This led to over complicated processes and procedures resulting in unhappy customers, too many complaints and extra costs to put things right.
“Energy should be simple for our customers and we have complicated it. Our plan is to create an Npower that delivers better service, is more attractive to customers and better prepared for future opportunities – all at lower costs.”
As well as its offices in Swindon, Worcester and London, Npower operates and manages coal, oil, biomass and gas-fired power stations, which together produce more than 10% of Britain’s electricity.
Unions have warned of the ‘devastating’ impact the job cuts would have and put the blame for the crisis in the business firmly at the door of its bosses.
Unison general secretary Dave Prentis said: “Npower has been in trouble for some time thanks to poor decision-making at the very top, and workers are now paying the price.
“The company’s failure to invest properly in new systems has left it with one of the worst customer service records in the business.
“The news suggests that Npower’s German owner isn’t terribly committed to its UK operations. Cutting a fifth of the workforce will leave the already struggling business in an even worse state. Now months of uncertainly lie ahead for a workforce whose morale is already at rock bottom.”
Eamon O'Hearn, of the GMB union, told the BBC: “GMB is disappointed that hard-working members, many of whom have experienced significant disruption and uncertainty over the past 12 months, are set for more uncertainty over the next 12.
“GMB members, in particular those in customer-facing roles, have been instrumental in helping the company to turn around the retail business and we deserve to know the full picture as soon as possible.”
