Barclays Bank is to cut as many as 200 jobs from its IT staff, according to reports. The company confirmed that redundancies are in the pipeline, but declined to discuss specific numbers.

The bank, which has recently appointed a new head of IT, also confirmed that it would be "reviewing the structure and nature" of its £350m outsourcing deal with EDS, adding that by its very nature, the deal with EDS was a "one off".

"The A-D rankings apply to our senior managers across the whole of the bank, not just the IT department," the company said in a statement. "It is always better for us to improve an employee's performance than to replace him or her. If you can't it is right to manage an underperforming employee out of the organisation."

Rumours that Barclays is likely to drop its contract with EDS have been circulating in recent weeks, but the services company would not comment further, not would it speculate as to any likely successors.

At the time of writing EDS had not returned our calls seeking comment, but a spokeswoman for the company told The Times: "We are confident that our agreements with Barclays are flexible enough to accommodate the bank’s changing requirements."®

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