UK television station Channel 4 has outsourced its human resources administration and payroll process to its IT services supplier of 17 years, Logica, the company revealed this week.

The deal involved moving 25 HR processes onto an Oracle application, which went live during April 2009.

Channel 4, which is publically owned, has been under significant pressure to cut costs. The channel has also reduced its headcount by about 200 in the past year, and in its annual report published earlier this week, Channel 4 revealed that it may cut its content production budget by up to £75 million this year, having originally pledged to cut it by £25 million.

The deal with Logica allows Channel 4 to scale its utilisation of the processes up and down according to demand.

Within the current economic climate, it is essential that clients can depend on service providers to deliver the flexibility in the way services are procured and financed,” said Patricia Taylor, director of Logica’s UK HR and payroll business in a prepared statement. “Our pay-as-you-go model is designed to provide a rapid return on investment for our clients.”