The John Lewis Partnership is considering a restructuring of head office roles to cut costs and bring its two retail chains closer together.

According to The Sunday Times, outgoing chairman Charlie Mayfield has drawn up plans to reduce duplication between John Lewis and Waitrose. The two retailers currently have separate finance, marketing, HR and procurement departments.

They also have separate operating boards in three different head offices: one for Waitrose, one for John Lewis, and a third used for the partnership.

The Sunday Times’ sources also suggested the partnership’s pension scheme could be up for review.

Details of Mayfield’s restructuring plans are set to be revealed ahead of the arrival of his replacement Sharon White. But any such changes would need to be discussed with the partnership’s employee body, due to the potential for job losses.

A spokesperson stated: “At our recent half year results we spoke about working as one business, with two brands. We are pressing on with this work and will share details in due course.”

The partnership’s half-year report, published earlier this month, showed it had swung to an underlying pre-tax loss of £25.9 million, compared to profits of £800,000 at the same time last year.

Overall losses were driven by operating losses at John Lewis, which increased to £61.8 million from £19.3 million a year ago, as it suffered falling sales, surging costs of an IT overhaul and increasing cost inflation.

Waitrose performed better, with underlying earnings increasing 14.7 per cent to £110.1 million, although like-for-like sales fell 0.4 per cent year-on-year.

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