RECRUITING for the future is a challenge faced by many businesses and something a recent networking event attended by Andy Burnham sought to address.

The Bury Means Business event brought together politicians, businesses and educators to look at how children can be given the skills to work.

Elizabeth Clark, CEO of Dream Agility, based in Ramsbottom, felt positive after the event and felt a message was being delivered to schools and colleges.

She said: "It was a brilliant event.

"It's frustrating nobody is producing anybody with the skills I can use and the apprenticeships and social media stuff out there is awful. The stuff being taught is out of date."

Ms Clark also felt pressures on those who want to do apprenticeships should be alleviated, saying in the past aptitude tests were all that were needed. Now many find themselves resitting exams in order to achieve necessary C grades.

She said: "Bury College is training 2,500 children to resit their maths and English to level C or above because they can't do apprenticeships if you don't have C or above. Years ago you would have aptitude tests.

"There's 1,300 apprenticeships at the college. Something doesn't add up."

She added: "How awful must they feel being forced to go back to college again and again, they must feel like failures, we have to find a way to make kids feel better about themselves.

"96 per cent of the economy is driven by companies with a turn over of less than a million. They want these people."

She said Mr Burnham outlined three groups which are key in the future of employment.

These are the older generations who may find it difficult to retrain, the 15-18 year olds who leave school and become NEET (Not in Education, Employment, or Training) and the early years.

This last group she said, can be targeted now and see benefits down the line.

She said: "We know from the time a child reaches the age of five how much it is going to cost the state in terms of benefits."

Charlie Deane, principal and chief executive of Bury College, attended the event, he said: "Bury College continues to work alongside valued partners including Bury Council and Greater Manchester Combined Authority delivering to more than 1,300 apprentices across 700 employers and we hope to extend these services over the coming period."

This year, Bury Council published the Life Chances Report, which detailed ways to improve lives across the borough and it highlighted how to increase children's employment prospects.

Council leader, Rishi Shori said: "This event is a direct result of the feedback from our business community, who have expressed concerns about the future recruitment needs of their organisations and the skills and attitudes that they will need to grow their businesses.

"At the same time, the Greater Manchester Combined Authority and our newly elected Mayor want to understand how best to engage with businesses and ensure the policies we champion, the activities we fund, the programmes we commission and the whole devolution agenda has businesses at the heart.

"I’m delighted that Andy was our keynote speaker, as Greater Manchester is poised to become one of the world’s leading regions, driving sustainable growth across a thriving north of England.

"I launched Bury’s Life Chances Commission last year because I wanted to get down to the detail of why there are some parts of our community that don’t enjoy the benefits of economic growth.

"Events like this will influence how we take the results of the Commission forward and pave a way to bring our schools, training providers, colleges, the council and businesses together as one team in Bury."

After the event on Thursday, Greater Manchester Mayor, Mr Burnham said: "It was a great event to go to and meet so many people with a real drive to help Greater Manchester grow and reach its full potential.

"This can only happen by creating jobs for local people and the ambition shown by the local businesses that attended was great to see.”