Insurance giant Aviva modified plans to cut redundancy pay for its staff in the wake of union concerns it emerged yesterday.

Last week the Aviva announced it was axing 2,000 jobs across its global operation as part of an ongoing £400m cuts programme.

And there was further anger when it said it was also cutting its redundancy terms, which would see redundancy pay capped at 78 weeks - down from the current 104 week cap from May, while from December payments will be halved from fours weeks pay for each year of service to two weeks although this is still twice the length of the statutory minimum terms.

The cuts sparked an angry retort from the Unite union whose general secretary Dominic Hook condemned the plans as 'callous and despicable'.

However the union yesterday admitted that Aviva had shifted ground following talks with officials ahead of last week's announcement.

Neither said were willing to provide details of what was originally on the table, but said the changes included pushing back the date for introducing the two week payment change.

Unite spokesman Ciaran Naidoo said: 'We were consulted in advance. There were some changes to the redundancy proposals as a result of the discussions. They were going to bring the two weeks for every year's service in earlier.'

However he said the union stood by its strident condemnation and said the cuts came at a time of considerable economic uncertainty, and a time of 'deep concern' about jobs.

'We were still unhappy with the final decision that the company made, the end result wasn't what we wanted,' he added. 'There will be ongoing discussions about the cuts.'

Meanwhile staff remain in the dark about exactly how many jobs will go or which departments will be affected.

No details have been released but with Aviva boss Mark Wilson looking at a 6pc across the board that could see about 360 jobs lost out of the 6,000 employed in Norwich.

An Aviva spokesman said: 'We listened to our employees across this process. We have a strong consultative process with both Unite and our employees, through Your Forum, the representative body. We listened to their feedback and as a result, we agreed a phased approach for the implementation of redundancy terms.'