MOBILE phone operator Orange will outsource 700 jobs to India by the end of the year, it was revealed last night.

The news follows successful call centre trials, held in Delhi, through outsource companies Vertex and Convergys.

The group, which employs 5,000 staff in Darlington, Peterlee, County Durham, and on North Tyneside, said it was looking at expanding the number of calls handled offshore by its third party partners now trials had been completed.

That will lead to the creation of 700 full-time posts in India by the end of the year, it confirmed last night.

But Orange was keen to allay fears that offshoring calls to India would lead to redundancies in the UK.

In a statement, it said the majority of calls would still be handled by its UK communication centres and it would continue to have a significant presence in the North-East and South-West.

Orange is the biggest private sector employer in Darlington, employing about 2,400 workers at its Yarm Road site. It employs a total of 5,000 people across the North-East.

Mike Hughes, customer service director at Orange, said: "Our main objective is to provide the best service for our customers.

"Whether it is a call centre in the UK or in India, our main concern is that customers get the levels of service they need and expect from Orange.

"We are confident that our partners overseas meet our rigorous standards and work alongside our existing UK operations.

"Most importantly, customers have told us they are happy with the service provided both in the UK and offshore."

Orange is recruiting a team of 20 to 30 volunteers, chosen from its UK sites, to travel to India to help train staff in the call centres.

A spokeswoman said the offshoring of calls, many of them Pay-as-You-Go inqui-ries, would not lead to reduced staffing levels in the UK and that the company had recruited more than 900 workers in this country between May and July.

She said: "We need to be very flexible in our workforce and what they deal with.

"We have got to keep service levels to a high standard.

"This was always about dealing with certain call types and retaining other types of calls in the UK, using the expertise of the UK-based staff to deal with complicated calls."

Ciaran Naidoo, of trade union Amicus, said that while offshoring did not necessarily lead to compulsory redundancies, it had always argued to keep work in the UK to ensure quality of service.