One of the country’s largest FE providers has launched a new group structure to oversee its provision across the country.

The new LTE Group (short for Learning, Training and Employment) brings together The Manchester College, distance and online learning provider MOL, Total People, which offers workplace learning, and Novus, which delivers skills to people furthest away from education, including prison-based learning.

John Thornhill, The Manchester College’s chief executive, told TES that the new organisation would be “an integrated education and skills group”, which would “support education and skills delivery across all parts of the spectrum”. The new group includes more than 100,000 learners and 5,000 staff, spread across 120 locations. 

A common shared services organisation has been established to support all members of the group, and which will deliver part of the operation such as HR, estates management and marketing. This would allow the organisation to realise efficiencies, which could then be re-invested, Mr Thornhill told TES.

“This is the first group of its kind,” he said. Each part of the organisation willhave its own board and strategies, but all of them will be embedded into the new organisation. “One of the things we want to do is to be able to allow each unit to invest with the backing of the group, and effectively to be increasingly self-sufficient in relying on government grants,” Mr Thornhill said, adding that the new structure would allow the organisation to “support the changing needs of the sector over the next five to 10 years”. 

The process towards reorganisation had begun with a strategic review carried out in 2013, but had been informed by recent policy changes, said Mr Thornhill. “It is a reality that, going forward, all organisations in the sector will have to be much more responsive to learners, to employers, and the different needs of stakeholders.” He said the way to react to increasing devolution to the regional level and the changing policy environment was “by having an overarching group that can coordinate a response”.