Royal London plans to cut hundreds of IT jobs and shift work to India under an outsourcing deal with IBM, according to sources, with redundancies expected by the end of December. Sources said Royal London’s chief technology officer, James Sandell, told IT staff in September that the insurance and pensions giant was partnering with IBM to outsource a substantial portion of its technology operations. A consultation process was expected to follow. A Royal London spokesperson told The Register : "Royal London has appointed IBM as its strategic technology infrastructure partner as it continues to develop its technology strategy. The partnership will give Royal London access to IBM’s specialist capability, scale and experience. Royal London will remain accountable for service delivery and regulatory requirements and continues to focus on ensuring continuity and quality of service for customers." We asked Royal London how many UK IT roles it would retain and whether IBM would move work to India. The exact number of jobs at risk remains unclear, although one Glassdoor review posted on October 6 claims that hundreds of positions in the company’s technology operations division are being eliminated. "A vast amount of knowledge is being lost by the business, a lot that is not yet documented due to constant years of recruitment freeze and workload volume," they wrote. The reviewer also questioned whether management had grasped just how much work would be involved in handing operations over to IBM, particularly with already stretched teams being cut to a fraction of their former size. Royal London replied to the Glassdoor review, acknowledging staff concerns about the changes, though it didn’t comment on the claims about outsourcing and redundancies…