NEW College has won an award for the advice it offers students.

The college, in Walcot, has been accredited with a Matrix standard after being judged on the quality of information, advice and guidance it gives to users.

It is thought to be the only college in the UK which has won the award after offering up the work of staff in all departments for inspection.

Principal Graham Taylor said: "This is an unique achievement among organisations in the UK, to achieve the award for this scale of operation and it has been a team effort.

"We are particularly pleased with the award because we went for the full Monty.

"The standard can be awarded to part of your business, for example your customer services team, but we went for the whole award, which covers the staff at all of our centres.

"As far as I know we are the first college to achieve this."

The national scheme, first launched in 2002, is operated by two independent bodies, the Employment NTO and the Guidance Accreditation Board. It involved almost 60 interviews over four days.

It is open to any organisation which supplies people with information,

At New College it took all areas into account, including liaison with local schools, adult community education, distance learning, admissions, customer and student services and the business services team.

An assessor said the college was customer-focused and had a dedicated leadership.