£40m: the cost of BT's stay-at-home staff

NEWS BT's debt mountain may be shrinking slowly, but there remains at least one area of concern for the company: namely the £40m it's paying out every year to pay staff who don't actually do any work. Proving that the unions still have a major influence within BT, up to 1,000 staff are employed by a BT division called First Call while they are retrained, or are found other jobs by the company. The average BT wage is £38,000. But BT is trying to plug the hole in its finances: although the unions would be outraged if it changed its policy of no compulsory redundancies, the company may insist that any unfilled position in the group is filled by a First Call employee. It is also expected to make First Call staff redundant if they turn down offers of jobs elsewhere in BT twice, according to the Sunday Telegraph. The paper also claims that the flotation of BT's wholesale arm, which sells network capacity and call terminations to other carriers, has been put on ice. A new network-based company, with a working title of NetCo, is still likely to be created this year, although the imminent demerger has been shelved. MMO2, the newly named wireless division which incorporates BT Cellnet, will be spun off as planned in the near future. Meanwhile, the two companies vying for ownership of BT's 'crown jewels' are rumoured to be planning a meeting in an attempt to thrash out a joint plan of attack. The Sunday Times reports that Earthlease - which is prepared to pay £8bn for BT's local loop - and West LB, the German investment bank which led an £18bn bid to buy all of BT's fixed line business - are to meet face to face to investigate ways of working together. BT insists that these operations, which are the key assets of the company, are not for sale.