A GATESHEAD training company has signed up to a £2m deal which will safeguard around 50 jobs with two smaller North East training firms.

Access Training secured the money from the Skills Funding Agency (SFA) and has entered into a partnership deal with two other training providers – Durham Training and MPH Customer Centred Training.

The link-up is vital to ensuring the two smaller firms can access work because the SFA, which allocates £4bn in public funding to train adults each year, has increased the minimum value of the contracts it awards – potentially putting them out of reach of many smaller training organisations.

Access, which has been in business for over 25 years, has started a partnerships division offering subcontracts to smaller firms and has appointed Chris Barrass as partnerships director.

She 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.”

June Brewis, training provision manager at MPH, 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 we know and trust now, rather than being left with a more limited number of potential partners.

“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.”

And Susan Harris of Durham Training echoed her comments.

“This partnership has enabled us to work with two high quality training providers and to continue providing training,” she said.

“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.”