A UNION has reacted angrily to proposals by one of the region's employers to transfer dozens of jobs to India.

About 50 former civil service jobs at the National Savings complex at Millburngate House, in Durham City, are thought to be affected by the proposal.

It is feared that similar proposals could affect the 120 call centre staff on the same site.

However, employers say there will be no job losses and no site closures as a result of the proposals, which they say are necessary to help the business deliver growth and reduce costs to the taxpayer.

The staff in question are employed by Siemens Business Services, which in 1999 won the contract to operate the National Savings complexes in Blackpool, Durham and Glasgow. More than 500 staff work at the Durham branch. Nationally, about 250 jobs are expected to be transferred to India.

Under the proposal, routine clerical work, such as data inputting, will be transferred abroad. Employers say that staff involved will be retrained for other tasks within National Savings and that pay will be unaffected. Unions fear the move may signal the start of a trend and plans a campaign against the changes.

Leigh Mavin, secretary of the Durham branch of the Public and Commercial Services Union, said: "This will be the first lot of Government work to be transferred offshore and it opens the floodgates. They have been unable to give us any assurances on the future of call centre jobs and we view it as the thin end of the wedge."

However, a spokesman for Siemens Business Services, which has recently won a five-year extension to its contract to run the three complexes, said: "We are talking about transferring routine admin tasks to India and all those people who are currently doing that job here will be retrained. We have said categorically there will be no redundancies and no site closures and there is a commitment to keep their pay at at least the same level as it is now."

A spokesman for National Savings and Investment said the proposals would allow for growth of the business and were good for employees and taxpayers.