About 120 IT staff at the AA will be transferred after the motoring organisation outsourced its IT to IBM in a seven-year deal initially worth up to £50m.
The AA’s decision to outsource is due in part to having to start its IT infrastructure almost from scratch. It was sold by its parent company Centrica in September 2004 to venture capital firms CVC Capital Partners and Permira for £1.75bn.
Under the deal with IBM, about 120 IT staff will be transferred from Centrica under TUPE regulations, with half going to IBM and half going to the AA.
The motoring group is now in a period of transition that will see the withdrawal of IT support from Centrica and a gradual handover to IBM beginning in April that should be completed by the end of the year.
Meanwhile, rival motoring organisation RAC has told 35 staff that their roles will become redundant, as part of a move to outsource some of its software development to India.
The jobs affected are in the business systems division, which supports application design and development for the whole of the RAC motoring group.
A consultation period is now underway for 35 staff, although an RAC spokeswoman said some will be offered the option of redeployment to 17 existing vacancies within the company.
