Norfolk CC has received a £1.23m windfall from its spin-off company, the Norse Group. The group, which has two subsidiaries - Norfolk Property Services (NPS) and Norfolk County Services (NCS) - has recorded sales of £84.57m and pre-tax profits of £2.06m since January. It has given owner Norfolk CC £1.23m, and also made a charitable donation of £350,000 toward refurbishment of the Norwich Theatre Royal. NPS already operates property service consultancies in Wigan and Wakefield and earlier this month, struck a 15-year partnership deal with Stockport MBC. More than 80 of Stockport's estates staff will transfer, as part of the deal, to a new company, known as NPS Stockport. The company will be jointly owned by NBC and Stockport MBC, and will deal with estates and asset management, architectural design and electrical engineering. Managing director Mike Britch said: 'This is another important step forward for NPS and I am confident it will be a successful move both for us and our partners. We are already receiving expressions of interest from potential new customers, and I expect us to expand the numbers we employ in Stockport, allowing council taxpayers to share our success.' And Stockport's corporate director of business services, Steve Houston, added: 'This will enable our property services function to be better able to recruit and retain key staff, and take advantage of joint working with NPS when there are peaks and troughs in the workload.' NPS also hopes to sign similar partnership deals with both Devon CC and Waltham Forest LBC in the near future. 'NPS continues to go from strength to strength,' said Norfolk CC's cabinet member for commercial services, Cllr Tony Williams.
