1. Newcastle College Group Our 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
Business Assurance and Audit
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 17

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