City firm Ashurst has confirmed it is axing more than 50 roles in London. In May, the Gazette reported that the firm was reviewing jobs and that this could result in around 80 roles being cut. However, a statement from the firm this afternoon confirmed the final number as 54.

As part of its consultation the firm also proposed moving the secretarial function and certain regional business services functions into a new team and introduce a newly created ‘practice executive’ role.

A spokesperson said today: ‘Following the firm’s announcement that it was introducing a new structure for its secretarial function, we can confirm that 25 of the executive assistants in London have accepted offers for the new practice executive role. We have successfully recruited for the vast majority of the remaining 12 roles, and we anticipate this being finished by the end of the month.

‘The collective and individual consultations with impacted staff have concluded and out of the 80 roles at risk, 54 full time equivalent roles have been confirmed as redundant.’

Claire Townshend, head of HR, EMEA and US, said: ‘We recognise that this has been a difficult time for those directly affected by the changes and we aimed to deal with the process sensitively, openly and respectfully for those impacted. We have been very grateful to our staff for being engaged and professional through this time and we thank them for this.’

Ashurst has 400 partners and 1,300 lawyers across 25 offices in 15 countries.