BT urged to let staff keep jobs by working at home

BT has been urged to let its Aberdeen staff continue working from home amid plans to potentially make them redundant by closing their office.

The communications giant occupies only around one-tenth of New Telecom House in South College Street and has started a consultation with employees over its future due to the cost of the lease renewal.

It means 140 jobs could be moved out of Aberdeen to another location in Dundee or Glasgow, or as far afield as Wales.

BT says that no final decision has yet been made and that any changes will not affect the roll-out of the city’s full-fibre broadband network.

It added that it employs more than 400 people across the north-east, with the “vast majority” engineers who will not be affected by the proposed move.

But West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine MP Andrew Bowie has written to its head of policy and public affairs Mark Dames, urging him to reconsider.

He said: “Surely if you are providing a level of customer service and care, and planning to extend the network utilising 140 people based locally in Aberdeen – the same level of service, care and investment locally cannot be guaranteed once they are gone, potentially to other parts of Scotland, potentially lost completely?”

Both Mr Bowie and his MSP colleague Peter Chapman have called on BT to allow staff to continue their employment while working remotely.

Also writing to Dr Dames, Mr Chapman said: “A continuation of home working seems to be the obvious solution to the ending of the lease.

“Alternatively, there is no shortage of office accommodation in Aberdeen.”

A BT Group spokesman said: “We know that many of our colleagues want to work in modern workspaces. We believe this makes our teams more effective.”

New Telecom House