Pensions ballot

Members of the Unite union at Barclays Bank are to be balloted for industrial action over the bank’s decision to close all its remaining final salary pension schemes and move existing members into the Afterwork “hybrid” scheme that already covers newer employees.

About 18,000 staff will be affected. Talks over the move came to a halt last month when the bank declined a “compromise” proposal from Unite to replace final salary arrangements with a career-average “CARE” defined benefit scheme, which the union said would have saved the bank £500 million.

Barclays is one of a number of big name private firms, including IBM and BP that have recently announced that they intend to step back from existing pension commitments.