Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) this afternoon announced plans to cut up to 2,300 UK jobs — just hours after its former chief executive, Sir Fred Goodwin, apologised to MPs for his part in the bank’s downfall.

The bank, which owns NatWest and Ulster Bank, said it had begun a consultation process with staff “regarding a restructuring” that could lead to the losses.

The bank, which employs 106,000 people across the UK, said the mooted job losses represented a reduction of around two per cent in its workforce.

It insisted that the move would not affect customer-facing branch staff and said the job losses would be largely in back office functions. It also insisted that the job losses would be UK wide and not concentrated in one geographic area.

The bank, which will shortly be 68 per cent owned by the Government following its recent recapitalisation, said it had agreed with the Unite union that every effort would be made to keep compulsory redundancies to a minimum.

Alan Dickinson, chief executive of RBS UK, said: “We recognise that any news of this nature is unwelcome at any time. It is essential, however, that we consistently review our business to ensure that we are able to operate as efficiently as possible, especially in the current economic circumstances.

“We will be consulting with our recognised trade union, Unite, and our employees throughout. We fully agree with Unite that we must keep compulsory redundancies to a minimum and we will.

“Everyone at RBS is focused on delivering for our customers and restoring the health of the overall organisation. Staff have given everything they have over the last year which makes the decision to cut any job an extremely tough one. We will do everything we can to mitigate the impact on our people and keep job losses and compulsory redundancies to the minimum.”

However, Derek Simpson, joint General Secretary of Unite said: “On the day that 'sorry' appears to be the easiest word for the bosses, 2,300 employees are left paying the price for management mistakes.

"The announcement by Royal Bank of Scotland that they plan to cut thousands of jobs marks a disastrous day for staff at the bank and represents a further blow to workers across the financial services sector."

He added: “These job losses reflect the reality of the credit crunch where staff face the ultimate penalty in the form of their jobs, while the senior bankers, who played monopoly with the money of established finance companies, simply walk away with bumper pay offs."

The timing of the announcement is likely to prove controversial as it comes just hours after Sir Fred and the former RBS chairman, Sir Tom McKillop, faced MPs to discuss their handling of the bank in the run-up to its collapse.

It also guarantees that Sir Fred’s successor, Stephen Hester, will be given a tough time when he appears before the Treasury Select Committee tomorrow afternoon.

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