BANKING group Lloyds TSB last night vowed to press ahead with the closure of a North-East call centre, despite a report which said moving jobs to India would lead to a poorer service for customers.

Lloyds announced last year that 980 jobs were to be axed when it moved its Tyneside call centre operations.

But research by ContactBabel has shown that workers in UK call centres answered a quarter more calls each hour than Indian employees and resolved 17 per cent more of the calls first time.

Steve Morrell, author of the report, said: "The figures show that businesses are moving their call centres to India to save their salary bill, not to improve their quality of service, regardless of what they say.

"It is hard to ignore the salary savings, but if customers get a worse service and end up going to a competitor with a call centre in the UK, then these cost savings will soon disappear."

The survey found that UK call centre employees tended to stay with their company for well over three years, compared with 11 months for Indian workers.

The report also found that workers in Indian call centres were being paid less than 12 per cent of the typical salary of a UK call centre worker.

Sir Bill Connor, general secretary of the shopworkers union Usdaw, said: "The industry must recognise the depth of quality we have in this country. Salary costs might be cheaper in India, but that seems to go hand in hand with poorer quality, less efficiency and more customer frustration."

A spokesman for the Communication Workers Union said: "We welcome the research, which backs up our argument about the importance of quality of service and customer satisfaction."

A spokeswoman for Lloyds TSB said: "We took the decision to open the operation in India after careful consideration and research.

"Our experience of the pilot that has been running since the beginning of April has been very encouraging."

Contact centres are one of the region's biggest employers. But fears for jobs have grown as an increasing number of UK companies join the trend for outsourcing, or moving operations to developing countries where they can pay much lower wages.

National Rail Enquiries has announced jobs are to go at its centre on Tyneside, and Norwich Union, which employs 4,000 people in North Yorkshire and the North-East, also plans to export jobs to India.

Other companies, including Northern Rock, have pledged themselves to remaining in the UK.

Yesterday, building society Nationwide announced further investment in its call centres in Swindon and Northampton, along with the creation of a new site and 180 jobs in Sheffield.