A college group is searching for partners to revive a beleaguered “national college” brand after an apprenticeship provider quietly quit last year.
National College Creative Industries (NCCI) was set up in 2016 as a standalone college based in a purpose-built, £11 million ‘Backstage Centre’ campus in Purfleet-on-Thames, Essex.
But the college failed to recruit enough students and relaunched as a business co-owned by South Essex College and independent training provider Access Creative College in 2020.
However, Access Creative College left the partnership in late 2023, after rebranding and opening a new campus in east London, FE Week has now learned.
Future of NCCI
A South Essex College spokesperson said they hoped a refreshed business plan could “encourage” other providers to also take up the branding for their own creative provision.
It is also working on “weaving” the Department for Education-licensed NCCI branding across its creative curriculum.
The college has campuses in Southend-on-Sea, Grays and Basildon, and offers courses up to degree level in subjects including film and television production and costume production.
Limited partnership
Under the 2020 agreement, Access Creative College should have delivered apprenticeship training under the NCCI brand while South Essex College took ownership of the Backstage Centre.
But the two partners rarely worked together, FE Week understands, and the NCCI business has been dormant since it was set up in 2020.
Training building for hire
The £11 million Backstage Centre was built in 2013 for sector body Creative & Cultural Skills as a “purpose-built training facility” for the theatre and live music industries.
At the time, Angela O’Donoghue, who was principal of South Essex College, said the partnership would “create further opportunities to engage with providers from across the sector,” and promised to make the Backstage Centre “a magnet for industry and industry training in the southeast”.
But South Essex College – whose nearest base is a 30-minute bus trip away in Grays – now mainly hires out the building’s large sound stage, recording studio and dance studio for filming, rehearsals, live events training and music recording.
The majority of the “world-class” building was funded by the government, with reported contributions of £500,000 from Creative & Cultural Skills and equipment worth £1 million donated by industry.
The centre’s most recent accounts suggest it made a profit of £81,000 in 2023, falling from £263,000 the previous year.
However, it appears to owe South Essex College £709,000 following losses in previous years.
National colleges trials
NCCI was one of five national colleges set up in the 2010s with £80 million in government funding.
After issues with student enrolments, resulting in government bailouts of at least £12 million, only two still operate: the National College for Nuclear and Ada National College for Digital Skills.
The former National College for High-Speed Rail, understood to have cost £40 million to build, closed last year, FE Week revealed last week.
What happened to the old NCCI?
Proposals for what became NCCI were first announced in 2014. Following parliamentary approval in 2016 the college opened its doors in the Backstage Centre that year.
The centre is in High House Production Park, a “creative cluster” of buildings including the Royal Opera House’s Bob and Tamar Manoukian Production Workshop and Costume Centre, in an industrial area of Purfleet-on-Thames.
However, it struggled to recruit students – partly due to its location on an Essex industrial estate, 20 minutes’ walk from Purfleet station.
When it closed in 2019 it had only enrolled 167 students and apprentices.
It had required several government bailouts to survive, including £600,000 in its second year, 2017-18, and a £1.25 million working-capital loan.
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