JOBS are at risk at Aviva in York, despite the city being home to the profitable "bedrock" of the global business.

David Barral, chief executive of Aviva's UK Life business, which is based in York, said they were working through one layer at a time to reduce unnecessary layers of middle management.

He said: "There's a group wide initiative, Project Simplify, which is about eliminating bureaucracy in the organisation, removing unnecessary layers of management with the benefit of speeding up decision making and reducing the number of people between me and the end customer.

"That means we will see people leave this organisation in the UK, in Yorkshire and in York."

He said the business was just moving into consultation and doesn't yet know how many jobs will be affected.

Mr Barral said: "We're working our way through that at the moment, our focus is on communicating and working that through with our staff first and those affected. Everybody will know where they stand by the end of September."

He said the he was very pleased with the UK business's half-year results against a very difficult economic backdrop, with operating profit increasing 2 per cent to £469 million.

But he said they weren't immune to cost-cutting.

"The market only gets more competitive. It's a bit like the Olympics, they know the high jump is likely to be a couple of centimetres higher in the next Olympics than this one."

Overall Aviva recorded a pre-tax loss of £681 million, down from a profit of £465 million in the same period for 2011.

He said the difficulties the brand had faced with the shareholder spring and the resignation of chief executive Andrew Moss over salaries had not affected the UK Life business, which is mainly sold through intermediaries. But he said it had hurt the pride of employees.

The business announced it would pay shareholders an interim dividend of ten pence per share.