LEADERS of Cumbria's two new training and business support organisations have spoken for the first time about their ambitions to boost the county's economy next year.

Rob Cairns, chief executive of Furness Building Society, will chair the new Learning and Skills Council for Cumbria, while Cumberland Pencil Company managing director David Sharrock takes the helm of the county's new Small Business Service.

The two bodies are part of a national network of organisations due to get off the ground next April as part of a Government shake-up of training and business support.

They will replace Enterprise Cumbria, a move which means responsibility for training and business support will be split between two separate organisations - just two years after the functions were brought together following a merger of Cumbria TEC and Business Link.

Mr Sharrock said the new Small Business Service would start from a position of strength because the present support service was well respected.

The SBS had consulted widely with the business and commercial community across Cumbria to ensure that support services met local demands, Mr Sharrock told Enterprise Cumbria's annual public meeting at the Greenhill Hotel, Wigton.

Some 18 of the Cumbria Small Business Services will be based at its head office in Carlisle, with the remaining business advisors working from home across the county.

The organisation will control a £2.7 million budget to deliver contracted services.

The Cumbria Learning and Skills Council will aim to encourage more people over 16 into education and training, and raise standards of education for 16 to 19-year-olds as well as improve the quality of training in the workplace, said Mr Cairns.

"We must convince employers and employees of the need to retrain and re-educate," said Mr Cairns, adding that people needed to abandon the idea that learning was left on the school peg at the age of 16.

l Mick Farley has been named as the new executive director of the Cumbria Learning and Skills Council.

Mr Farley is currently chief executive of Careerdecisions Ltd, the careers service for Knowsley, Liverpool and Sefton.

He was previously Merseyside TECs deputy chief executive.

He came to Merseyside, as the senior assistant director of education at Liverpool City Council, from Sheffield where he had been Senior Adviser (Post-16) at the city's Education Department.

Before going to Sheffield, Mick was a national official for the National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education and a Section Head in a college of further education.

At present Mick chairs both the Sefton Learning Partnership and the Greater Merseyside Lifelong Learning Council, a forum of all six Learning Partnerships across Greater Merseyside, and is on the governing body of Knowsley Community College.

Mr Farley said the creation of a Learning and Skills Council offered a "unique opportunity" to plan and fund all post-16 learning in Cumbria.

"I think there are genuine grounds for optimism that we can make a difference," he said.

l Enterprise Cumbria managing director Steve Palmer has been appointed executive director of the new Learning and Skills Council for Lancashire.