Part of the 5% will be the annoying twats they employ in their TV advertisments, plus everybody involved in the production of those adverts. I know they are not IT workers per se, but knowing that HBOS does IT pretty badly... hopefully their HR function will be following suit.

IT always the first to go.

So will the C*O and board get a 5% or more reduction? After all, the reason why HBOS pay their executives more than Joe's Pizza Company is because HBOS is bigger.

It shows that the contractors took the 10% pay cut and not as many left as they were hoping!

That annoying singing bloke on the Halifax adverts has got the sack, at long last. The reason given by HBOS for his departure was that "…his cheeky-chappy demeanor was deemed unsuitable for the current economic climate". He was last seen singing "Something Good" by Hermans Hermits'.

http://www.leytonjay.co.uk/friends-fun/halifax-guy-howard-brown-sacked-at-last

Unfortunately, this poll by the Fail on Sunday does not yet accurately reflect the public's true opinion of the matter - perhaps we can change that:

http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/debate/polls/poll.html?pollId=1003101

My bet is that before Christmas they'll realise they're now understaffed in IT and start hiring "short-term" labour to fill the gap.

How about cutting back on the dumb customer service reps you ring that are no help.

Why Paris, HBOS customer service a job she could do and do well

Hopefully before they get the push they will pull their finger out and implement Faster Payments, which HBOS are still dragging their feet on...

An agent called recently about a contract at HBOS in Old Reekie.

I declined having experienced the problems opening the wallets of a Scotsman & a Yorkshireman. Talk about trying to get blood from a stone....

Clearing out some of the duplicate IT systems is a step in the right direction, as there are far too many leftovers (20-30 year old leftovers) still being maintained from all the different mergers, it's just a shame people will have to be lost to do it.

<rant>

I would have thought its a fairly standard IT department for a large organisation, management who can't see that doing it right, is better in the long run than doing it quickly & cheaply, deciding arbitrarily that we are spending too much time testing and so lopping 20-30% off the time allocated.

A lot of the developers who 'just fell into it' and so have no idea that there is a difference between coding something that just does what it's supposed to do and coding something well. (although there are a lot of coders out in the wild who need to learn this too - It's the difference between someone who, when presented with a greater than problem would hardcode the vaue (quick'n'dirty) or someone who would setup a parameter file and load the value from it - more time upfront but can be changed in seconds if needed)

However, there are a few of us striving to hammer home that coding for stability and maintainability is quite important for systems that, due to the industry, have a good chance of still being in use 20+ years from now.

That technical skills are not secondary skills for IT staff, that anyone with interpersonal skills can easily pick up. (developers went from being technical wizzes with no people skills, to people with brilliant interpersonal skills, but the technical aptitude of a mouldy turnip, now at least, it's levelling out to sit somewhere in the middle. although i still think it should lean more towards the technical side for developers).

That projects that might not have any immediate gains, can save lots of money in future. 2 months or so of time from a good developer, in any system, could streamline the codebase and make future development so much simpler, but noone will ever approve it as it's not a benefit that can be quantified.

That a project delivery date can't be set before anyone in IT has even heard of it, knows what it involves or has given any indication as to how long it will take.

That systems should be designed as new systems initially and then checked to see what can be taken on by existing systems, not designed with existing systems in mind from the start as that leads to things being designed badly.

<rant over>

Now some of the Masters Of The Universe have to get some real jobs, producing something real or providing a service that actually creates VALUE.

You know, boring physical devices instead of Off-Balance-Sheet-Vehicles.

Time to realize that and jump ship.

Quit FINANCE, join ARM.

And just as we were getting confident about our abilities to set up dial up modems for

Win95 'an all , sheesh , i wonder if i can still make a cup of tea ......

Given the current lack of reliable security and the over-reliance on computerised systems, Shirley it would be more strategic to dump a CEO and take on more IT staff with the profits. Ooops, silly me - I thought we were talking about intelligent forward thinking responsible managers.