TROUBLED services group WS Atkins is cutting 400 jobs and parting company with its chief executive after being hit by internal problems and the economic downturn.
Shares in the group, which formerly ran Swindon Council's revenues and benefits service, dived by 61 per cent as it forecast a slide into the red for the first half of the year.
Atkins, which employs 15,000 staff worldwide and is bidding for work on the London Underground, said the job cuts would be made across the board.
Atkins was cut loose from Swindon Council in August with a golden handshake worth £250,000 of taxpayers' money when the penalties for non-performance that the firm has accrued during its three years in charge of the council's revenues and benefits service were written off.
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