05 July 2004

David Miliband MP, Minister for Schools Standards, has marked a new chapter in education with the launch of VT Four S. VT Four S, whose shareholders are Surrey County Council and support services company VT Group, is the first public/private partnership of its kind offering school support services across the country.

It has a number of unique features including the joint shareholding and the sharing of profits between Surrey County Council and VT Group, the creation of an educational trust and close working with all those who work with it through a Partnership Board. This is the only trading school support service in the country directly linked to a three star high performing education service.

Steve Clarke, Chief Executive of VT Four S said “This unique arrangement has wins for all those concerned. Wins for schools and their staff and pupils as it will provide a wider range of high quality services. Wins for Surrey County Council in the better quality of services it will receive and a share of any profit from the joint venture. For VT Group it makes them a leader in education services and for VT Four S staff it will create wider opportunities for their personal development and careers. “The new educational agenda is based on success for all. It will require close working with schools at the heart of their communities. Schools of the future will have extended learning, family learning, parent education, close links with health and social care agencies be the focal point of the community and a centre for education and leisure.

“VT Four S is well placed to deliver this agenda for schools. It is a leader in ICT, it has good experience of working with federations of schools, it is a leader in 14-19 education and is a specialist in out of hours school learning and family learning. “Headteachers and governors are quite rightly daunted at the scale of the agenda. VT Four S intends to help schools with a process of change making the job “do able” for headteachers. VT Four S can help schools review all their resources freeing heads up to carry out the change agenda for their schools. “VT Four S intends to work with schools in a shared way. Already VT Four S employs many headteachers on its programmes. We want to seize the opportunity of VT Four S working in a wider field so that headteachers and staff get experience of different educational environments and can bring that learning to their own school.” VT Four S has set itself a target of expanding the business considerably over the next 5 years, from the current £15 million annual turnover.