Hosted by Lancashire Education Business Partnership (LEBP), employers from the private, public and third sectors were represented.

Gillian Beeley, chief executive of LEBP, laid out new challenges for employers and educators with the soon-to-be introduced Diplomas adding to the qualifications layers for schoolchildren.

The new Diplomas are designed to offer students core skills beyond the three Rs that will make them more attractive to employers.

Gillian Beeley said: "One of our key functions is to be a broker for work experience opportunities.

"Traditionally, work experience has been seen as benefiting the student. While that remains, we are increasingly aware of the benefits young people and work experience students can bring to the workplace.

"Our role is to ensure that all parties benefit – students learn about the real world and employers achieve a commercial gain.

"The new qualifications can be confusing, but we take the strain of that so that employers don't need to."

This fact-finding mission with employers will be repeated across the county.

"This ground work will enable us to identify and increase areas of collaboration between local employers and young people and establishing local Employer Reference Groups that will advise LEBP and other partners of issues affecting the local economy and, in particular, local employment issues."

LEBP works in partnership with employers, schools and colleges across Lancashire by co-ordinating their work experience programmes and supporting employers through providing advice and guidance on working with young people.