30 jobs to go at Dunfermline HQ

Despite our assertions that the 250 positions in Dunfermline Building Society's Scottish HQ were on shaky ground, it could be that only around 30 will be axed following the integration with Nationwide.

Though it's probably going to escape large-scale job losses, some redundancies are likely at the Fife-based head office, according to Tony Prestedge, group development director at Nationwide, who was involved in the takeover deal last week.

Support functions like HR, finance and treasury are earmarked as being the ones likely to go, and while there's not an official figure, The Scotsman reckons 30 jobs are on the line.

The chief exec Jim Willens has already announced that he's set to leave.

The controversy around the deal continues though. Jim Spowart, the founder of Intelligent Finance, has emerged as the man behind the failed Scottish consortium bid for Dunfermline (and, let's not forget, the attempt to stop the Lloyds-HBOS deal).

He says that his rejected bid means that Scottish jobs have been put on the line unnecessarily.

Meanwhile, a Scottish government source has been lamenting the potential job losses to the Sunday Times, saying the decision to allow Nationwide to take over Dunfermline was a UK one, and didn't consider the "economic significance of having the headquarters jobs in Scotland".