IPSWICH: Staff at Churchill Insurance face continuing uncertainty followiing confirmation yesterday that one of its two offices in the town is to be closed.

ROYAL Bank of Scotland today confirmed that one of its Churchill Insurance offices in Ipswich is to close – but there was no news of whether any of the staff affected will face redundancy.

The Churchill office in Crown Street, where 194 people are currently employed, is to close by the end of June next year as part of plans by RBS to rationalise the office network with the closure of a total of 14 sites.

Ipswich will continue to be a “core centre” for the business, with the Churchill office in Princes Street, which has a workforce of 356, among those being retained.

However, an RBS spokesman said that today’s announcement purely related to properties and the that process of identifying jobs at risk of redundancy would now follow.

RBS, whose insurance business also includes brands such as Direct Line and Privilege, announced in May that it planned to review its office structure in a move to improve efficiency ahead of the division’s sale.

The part-nationalised group had been ordered by the European Commission to sell its insurance arm, and a number of other businesses, as a condition of its multo-million bail-out by the Government at the hight of the financial crisis.

The announcement in May also indicated that around 2,000 jobs were expected to be cut, out of a total workforce within the insurance business of around 16,000, as a result of the rationalisation.