The National Magazine Company (NatMags) is to make 15-20 per cent of its staff at Hearst Digital redundant in a 'cost reduction review' and mass restructuring of the division.

Hearst Digital managing director Alex Ballantyne will leave the company as a result of the changes, which will see control of Hearst Digital's websites reassigned to other NatMags departments.

The redundancies are in line with plans announced by NatMags in February to reduce its entire workforce by 15-20 per cent, but no further redundancies will be made as part of today's restructuring announcement, a spokeswoman has publicly confirmed.

Responsibility for Cosmopolitan.co.uk, which was relaunched in April last year, will return to the publishing director and editor of the print edition, while GetLippy.com will come under Company's control, a release from NatMags confirmed.

Cosmopolitan website editor Kate Creasey and Getlippy.com editor Claire Gill will continue in their roles, the release said.

Websites Handbag.com and allaboutyou.com will continue to operate as standalone sites, while a new business group has been set up for Zest magazine and netdoctor.co.uk led by current publishing director of Runner's World and Triathletes' World, Steven Seaton.

Following the announcement of four redundancies from its sales team in February, advertising for the sites will now be handled by a central sales department, also tasked with selling print ads.

"Over the last few years we have tried a number of different structures for our magazine websites and we have reached the conclusion that they are best served by being managed closely with the print magazine business.  Our new structure will allow us to do this whilst preserving the ability to buy advertising campaigns across the whole digital network through a single point of contact," said Duncan Edwards, chief executive of NatMags, in the release.

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