BT is expected to put its "toxic assets" into a separate
business unit and sack thousands of staff on Thursday 14
May.
The reorganisation, expected when BT CEO Ian Livingston
announces financial results for the UK's biggest telco, will split
the troubled Global Services division into three, according to
reports in the Sunday Times.
The reorganisation, which BT does not deny, is due to cost
overruns on big contracts with the NHS and Reuters. BT will set
aside £1.5bn to cover these costs and the costs of the
reorganisation, which include laying off 10,000 of BT's 150,000
staff, the paper said.
One unit, led by Michael Boustridge, who already runs BT in
America and Asia-Pacific, will contain Global Services' 400 top
international clients.
Another will look after Global Services domestic customers,
although the NHS contract will have separate management. The third
unit will look after the rest of the contracts, including
acquisitions.
BT has three crucial pieces of the
NHS's National Programme for IT together original worth more
than £2bn. These are
- The Spine - the national electronic patient record database
and messaging system (£620m)
- N3 - the fast, secure, national broadband network (£530m)
- London local service provider - integrated local patient record
applications and IT systems (£996m)
It has subsequently won more NHS business since the NHS sacked
Fujitsu from the NPfIT.