Westminster City Council has denied that it is forcing almost 200 call-center staff to relocate to Scotland or face redundancy as part of its 10-year £422 million ($735 million) BPO deal with Vertex.

The row has broken out after Vertex announced its plans to relocate 180 jobs from Westminster to a call center at Dingwall in Scotland, because it could not find affordable office space in London when the lease on the current Belgravia office provided by Westminster Council expires this summer.

Vertex chose the ready-made call center operation at Dingwall Scotland, which was vacated when the national rail enquiries service was moved to India.