KPMG UK has made plans to cut its administrative assistant staff by almost a third in an attempt to cut costs to the business.
A spokesperson for KPMG said: “We are transforming our UK business. Over the past 18 months we have refocussed our firm to concentrate on the services most important to our clients, invested heavily in audit and changed our governance structure. As part of this process we have also reviewed the way in which we use administrative support.
“We are not taking these steps lightly, but we believe the proposed structure will enable us to deliver the best possible experience for our clients. We are now in the process of consulting with affected staff on the plans.”
The Financial Times reported that the redundancies would lead to some partners not having admin support. However, KPMG has denied this.
Recently, the firm has seen a number of changes to its structure; in June, it changed executive governance structure to introduce separate performance management and governance of the firm’s audit practice.
The firm, along with the audit profession in general in the UK, faced a high level of scrutiny following the collapse of construction company Carillion at the start of 2018 which prompted a number of reviews into the audit market and led the Competition and Markets Authority called for an operational split between audit and other services.
