A COMPANY offering distance learning courses has gone into receivership.

The National Distance Learning College, which was based on Teesside, made most of its staff redundant on Friday.

From its headquarters in York House, Borough Road, Middlesbrough, it ran courses encouraging students to use the Government's Individual Learning Accounts (ILA) programme, through which people were able to apply for grants to gain education and skills.

But, in a surprise development earlier this month, the ILA scheme was scrapped, removing at a stroke a major source of income for the company.

The Thanx Group, of which the college was part, marketed its computer courses nationwide with mass mailshots that also advertised reconditioned computers supplied by another of its companies, Fiche and Chips.

Last month, Fiche and Chips went into liquidation following hundreds of complaints about computers failing to arrive, or being substandard.

Administrative receiver Adrian Berry, of Deloitte and Touche, said: "The key issue behind this is the withdrawal of ILA money under the Government scheme. "Obviously, that is significantly impacting on the company."

The company, formerly known as Assertraining, was first registered in 1998. It also ran the Distance Learning College Ireland and Distance Learning College Eire, and its subsidiary office in Omagh has also closed.

It was considered to be one of the UK's biggest providers of ILA courses, and employed more than 100 people, mostly on Teesside.

Mr Berry said some staff had been retained pending the sale of part of the company.

"We are reviewing the business at the moment and looking at the prospect of selling part of it as a going concern," he said.

Mike Smallman, group chairman of Thanx, was said by colleagues to be in London and unavailable for comment.