Member Article

Training company boosted with £2m contract

North East training company, Access Training, has won a £2m contract, which will safeguard 50 jobs in the region.

The Gateshead-based company has secured the contract with the Skills Funding Agency (SFA), thanks to a partnership deal with two other training providers, Durham Training and MPH Customer Centred Training.

It has doubled its funding from the SFA, which allocates £4bn of public funding per year for the training of adults in England.

Access has launched a new partnerships division to offer subcontracts to other training companies, giving subcontractors security and efficiencies.

Chris Barrass has taken on the role of partnerships director to drive forward this new area of the business.

He said: “We have a long history of partnership working and saw the new SFA funding rules as an opportunity to grow our business by offering collaborative arrangements to others that safeguard their funding while providing additional support.

“It’s a win-win for all partners. MPH and Durham Training both have excellent reputations in their own right and although it’s early days we can already see some real benefits from working together. Our aim is that all partners will grow together over the next few years.”

Access draws down the SFA funding and carries out all the required auditing and performance and quality management.

Training provision manager at MPH Customer Centred Training, June Brewis, said: “It wasn’t absolutely necessary for us to go into partnership at this time but we were aware that the new SFA policy may mean we would need to do so in the future.

“So we took a decision to join two providers that we know and trust now, rather than being left with a more limited number of potential partners later.

“Access has a great reputation so was an obvious choice. The partnership suits us because we wanted to keep our own identity and the deal also allows us a good degree of control over our part of the contract.”

Training provision manager at MPH Customer Centred Training, June Brewis, said: “It wasn’t absolutely necessary for us to go into partnership at this time but we were aware that the new SFA policy may mean we would need to do so in the future.

“So we took a decision to join two providers that we know and trust now, rather than being left with a more limited number of potential partners later. Access has a great reputation so was an obvious choice.

“The partnership suits us because we wanted to keep our own identity and the deal also allows us a good degree of control over our part of the contract.”

Susan Harris of Durham Training, added: “This partnership has enabled us to work with two high quality training providers and to continue providing training.

“It’s early days but so far, so good. The support and advice it brings and being able to bounce ideas off like-minded training providers has been very positive.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Tom Keighley .