Insurance firm BLM has offered voluntary redundancy to all of its secretarial and direct support staff, with the aim of cutting 50 roles across the firm.

A spokesperson said the 50 roles represented 15% of the firm's secretarial and direct support staff, meaning that the voluntary redundancy offer has been put to approximately 330 employees.

Staff were informed yesterday (8 June), with the process expected to conclude by the end of this month.

RollOnFriday, which broke the news, reported that the firm is offering statutory redundancy to those who volunteer; however, the firm refused to comment on the package being offered.

BLM senior partner Mike Brown (pictured above) said: "We have made a decision to review our direct support teams across all of our locations in line with our business improvement programme. We have made a significant investment in developing technology at our firm and many of our lawyers are now working in an agile way, which has an impact upon the demand for traditional direct support. We have therefore offered voluntary redundancy to colleagues in our direct support teams and this process is currently ongoing."

The firm has previously cut lawyer roles, including a review of its healthcare practice in London and Manchester earlier this year, a redundancy consultation in Leeds that affected 21 staff, and a review of three fraud partners and their teams in Manchester last year.

Last year, BLM also saw an eight-partner Southampton team leave to launch a local office for Keoghs.

In its financial results for the 2015-16 financial year, the firm saw profit per equity partner decline 28% to £192,000, while revenue increased from £104.1m to £107.7m.