Rat race

THE increasingly market-mad world of further education welcomed a third lecturer supply agency this month in the unlikely guise of pest controller Rentokil.

The company Rentokil Initial - pre-tax profits Pounds 318 million - took over HMS Education Personnel last year. This outfit already supplied teachers to primary and secondary schools.

Rentokil already had 40 different businesses ranging from crane hire to tropical pot plants. It saw yet another opening in further education as cash-strapped colleges turned to sacking staff and re-employing them more cheaply through agencies such as Education Lecturing Services and Nord Anglia.

The only problem was the "re-branding" of HMS Education Personnel following the take over. Perhaps understandably, the marketing gurus opted to drop the Rentokil bit and call the new company Initial Lecturing Personnel.

Hard-up colleges take note: ILP may have some sort of special introductory offer - cheap lecturers, a year's supply of roller towels and all the Warfarin you can eat.