TROUBLED telecoms group BT has moved to reassure staff that it is not planning a fresh wave of redundancies.

It was reported yesterday that the debt-laden group was cutting staff numbers in its retail division by 13,000 in an effort to cut costs by £850 million.

But the company said the cuts had already been announced more than a year ago and stressed there were no new plans for cutting staff.

"There is nothing new in any of this," said the company's South West area spokesman, Jason Mann, who said the redundancies had been wrongly interpreted as new cuts at a recent press briefing.

"What was stated, which perhaps has been misunderstood, is that between March 2000 and March 2003 there was an intention to reduce the head count by 13,000," he said.

"The great majority of the jobs have already been shed and we made various statements a year ago about our intention to reduce headcount."

Mr Mann said around 4,000 of the 13,000 redundancies still needed to be made, but added that it was still the company's policy not to make anyone redundant who did not want to be.

Agency staff would also make up about a third of the 13,000 jobs trimmed, he said.

With 4,000 posts still to be trimmed, Mr Mann said he could not rule out redundancies at individual BT sites, such as its North Star House in Swindon.

About 700 staff are employed at North Star House, next to the Oasis Centre, mainly in non-retail occupations such as the supply and procurement of equipment for the whole of the BT Group.

Insiders said that this could mean the Swindon operation being left untouched by the 13,000 redundancies.

The redundancies in the retail division, which supplies telephone services and products for the home, are part of a wider bid to reduce BT's debt mountain, which earlier this year stood at £28 billion.

It has since sold off almost all its property portfolio in a £2.3 billion 'rent-back' deal with property firm Telereal.

It also raised £5.9 billion in a record-breaking rights issue, and the combined programme should bring down its overall debt burden to below £15 billion.