Northern hires 40 Carillion call staff

The team, based on Broad Street West, supported Northern’s and Grand Central’s passenger operations.

Northern will set up its own in-house call centre, although a location has yet to be chosen, a spokesman said.

Carillion also had 200 people cleaning and maintaining Northern’s 477 stations. They will transfer to become permanent employees at ISS, which Northern has awarded an initial 12-month contract to.

Carillion collapsed into liquidation in January with debts of £1 billion and a £580 million pension deficit. Its affairs are being managed by the Insolvency Service.

The Sheffield call centre employed 240. Sheffield telemarketing company Ant Marketing hired 20 staff in January and has been bidding to hire more ‘well-trained’ workers.

An Insolvency Service spokesman said the number of staff had fallen ‘as contracts have transitioned and with natural attrition’ to 110 today. The figure includes 10 moving to Grand Central and 30 to Northern.

David Brown, managing director, Northern, said: “Whilst the collapse of Carillion caused some short-term operational issues, I am pleased that we now have a strong outcome for Northern and those colleagues who have been supporting our operations.

“The collapse of Carillion was naturally very worrying for those impacted and so we’re pleased to be able to secure these roles supporting Northern’s customer service and facilities management operations. I’d like to thank those colleagues for their support and commitment during the last few weeks.”

Northern and Grand Central are part of Arriva Trains UK.

Arriva Rail North Limited operates the Northern franchise. Northern is the second largest train operator in the UK and will run services across the North until March 2025.