Newcastle College Group Our Journey

1. Newcastle College GroupOur Journey Jackie Fisher May 2010

2. Today’s Presentation • Who we are, what we do, how we do it • Our learning through growth and merger and acquisition • Sustaining excellence • Shared Services and IT Solutions • Our strategy

3. NCG Key Facts • Education, skills and employability provider • National and regional contracts • Group and three divisions • Newcastle College • Skelmersdale and Ormskirk College • Intraining • 3800 staff in 100+ locations and 160 buildings • Learning and Skills Beacon

4. What do we do? • Employability - £33m • Workforce development - £27m • Employers inc brokerage - £8m • Higher education - £19m • Adult training - £30m • 16-19 full time - £35m

5. NCG Objectives • Needs of the learner and customer first • Innovate and support excellence in learning and employability • Promote diversity and social mobility • Value, involve and invest in our staff • Foster strong partnerships with stakeholders and communities • Secure our future through strategic investment and profitability

6. Our Background Priorities • Strategy formulation/keep on top of change • Winning ‘right’ new contracts • Utilising information to understand the business and drive improvements • Leadership around behaviours • Management arrangements to drive strategy and accountability • Investing in people and ideas • Real performance, not pride or politics

7. How we run NCG • Group control key business processes - quality, budget setting, planning, performance monitoring • Group leadership model • Group expertise e.g. Shared Services, business development, financial analysis, e-learning, IT solutions, supply chain management….

8. Group Leadership • Agrees strategic direction and signs off plans and budgets • Sets standards and accountability framework and Group policy and procedures • Leads key business processes • Delivers Shared Services and Group solutions • Makes interventions and provides support • Appoints key leaders

9. Divisional Leadership • Proposes strategy and business plans • Designs and delivers programmes for learners/customers • Deploys resources flexibly and creatively • Assesses and improves performance • Develops and enables delivery staff • Builds relationships with stakeholders • Delivers agreed business plans/budgets

10. How we integrate a new division • Stabilise and communicate • Assess everything and review • De layer and refocus management • Graft on NCG: • key business processes: • Shared Services • IT solutions • expertise

11. What have we learned? • Learn the new organisation and keep learning • Focus immediately on income and cost drivers in as much detail as required • Health and Safety audit asap • Constant tension between Group control and confidence versus divisional delegation and autonomy • Zero tolerance of game playing

12. What have we learned? • Huge support and training requirements • Untested track record of existing staff needs caution • Populate the business with leaders who can understand our requirements • Use yourself and the senior team flexibly to do whatever needs to be done • Take any new learning across the whole organisation

13. Buying a private provider • Tracked its progress and analysed what it did • Separated the good parts from the bad • How much were the good parts worth to us - individually and as a whole? • Worked with Governors and set a price range • Haggled with administrators • Price, speed of transaction, availability of cash etc • Don’t underestimate legacy of administration

14. How we sustain excellence • Shared strategy events and agreement on priorities • Staff buy-in, communication and training • Always ‘closing the loop’ • Rigorous Group quality processes • Data, data, data • Investing in e-learning and innovation • Lots of people working very hard

15. Shared Services underpins growth • Finance – payables/receivables/expenses • Payroll and pensions • HR admin – MI system, appointments, checks • Procurement and purchasing • Treasury, tax and financial audit • Insurance & fleet • Help desk function for IT and telephones, data and physical security, health and safety, caretaking and cleaning, maintenance and repairs

16. Why invest in Shared Services? • Complex organisation needs re-engineered and e-enabled systems/processes • Ensures compliance and consistency • Customer experience improves • Removes duplication of effort and cost • Provides rich management information • Forces divisional managers to manage the operation • Adds value (people)

17. Group IT Solutions • ‘Private’ internet • 9500 PCs & Macs, 1000 laptops and 1000 virtual desktops and 190 physical and virtual servers • 550 separate software programs, patches, upgrades and fixes • 1026 mobiles, 120 Blackberries and 433 3G dongles • 10000 network ports • National field support

19. Our Strategic Choices pre-election • Hunker down - minimise risk, cut costs, reduce surplus, very limited investment and hope for better days • As above but with some growth areas against background of overall decline and cut costs disproportionately to income • Pursue a strategy of growth and investment based on investments already made

20. Our Pre-election Strategy • Grow Intraining profitably • Grow HE via co-funding route • Grow commercial income • Focus NCL on growth e.g. STEM • SOC to realise potential of new build • Merge with colleges

21. Thank you for listening