LONDON:  Britain’s former telecoms monopoly BT will consolidate its UK offices from 300 locations to roughly 30 sites while pressing ahead with plans to leave its St Paul’s headquarters in London, the company said on Wednesday.

New BT chief Philip Jansen inherited a major restructuring begun by predecessor Gavin Patterson as Britain’s biggest broadband supplier looks to move on from an accounting scandal and battles multiple pressures on its business.

The shake-up, including 13,000 job cuts, was announced a year ago and aims to tackle problems ranging from criticism of BT’s fibre broadband to an underperforming IT services business.

“Today, BT revealed the first eight of the locations that will house its workplaces of the future as part of a three-to-five-year programme initially announced in May 2018 to improve and consolidate its workplaces across the UK,” the company said.

Belfast, Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Ipswich, London and Manchester would be key locations for the group, BT said https://www.btplc.com/News/#/pressreleases/bt-group-reveals-first-eight-locations-as-part-of-biggest-uk-workplace-improvement-programme-2882815 in a statement.

BT, which employs over 100,000, gave no indication of the impact of the moves on jobs in particular locations.

A company spokeswoman confirmed that the office closures were in line with the plan revealed under Patterson last year to cut managerial and back-office jobs and move to a smaller London base.

The company, which has been based at the BT Centre, near St Paul’s Cathedral and the London Stock Exchange in the City of London since it was privatised in 1984, said on Wednesday it is currently identifying “a new home” for the business in the capital.

Reuters