CCC International, the European arm of the US motor insurance claims specialist, has announced redundancies at its Peterborough headquarters. The company had recruited ahead of expected growth in the business.

In a letter to staff, CCC chief operating officer Peter Stott said 25 staff faced redundancy. He gave as the reason restructuring because the “anticipated increase in business, for which additional staff were recruited, failed to materialise”.

The letter also says the company “does not forsee any significant upturn in business in the short term”. The redundancies are to take place throughout the company's departments, including product development, sales and marketing and finance and administration.

CCC International aimed to attract extensive UK bodyshop and insurance business with its advanced estimating and approvals packages, launched in the UK 18 months ago.

The group says it is in negotiations with several insurers but industry insiders believe the decision of Direct Line and RSA to exclusively use other software packages was a severe blow to the American company's growth plans.

##Peter Stott--left--STOTT: 'plans
amended'## Mr Stott (pictured left) said it was a point of concern that two of the largest UK insurance companies had chosen competitor packages, but insisted that the company had no intention of withdrawing from the UK market. “The growth of any new business is not straightforward and plans have to be amended as things change” he said. “We have made the changes as a way to concentrate our efforts into three key areas – consultancy, software tools and inspection services.

“Restructuring inevitably leads to some positions overlapping and, therefore, regrettably there have to be redundancies”.

Mr Stott said that the company was continuing to invest in the future and was currently looking for a new site to open a development centre in the Thames Valley area, which would be additional to the Peterborough base. “We are focused on expansion within mainland Europe and see much of our business development there” he added.