Prospects Group becomes employee-owned
Janaki Mahadevan
Friday, September 23, 2011
Education and training provider Prospects is to become an employee-led mutual.
The Prospects Group, which employs around 1,400 staff, will become a mutual after a decision made by the board this week.
The group, which had a turnover of nearly £80m in 2010/11, will also be offering support to local authorities and government departments that want to turn some of their existing services into mutuals.
Group chairman Ray Auvray said: "When Prospects was set up 16 years ago, we established it as a company limited by guarantee – without any shareholders. As the company has grown this structure has become increasingly inappropriate.
"We have taken the view that the enterprise has been created by the staff of the company and so it is logical that all the shares in the newly created share company should be allocated to managers and staff, creating an employee-owned mutual."
Auvray said the move would retain the best of the private and public sector cultures.
Prospects is the prime contractor for the Work Programme in the south-west of England. It also provides advice and guidance to offenders in all of London’s prisons and young offender institutions.
