Skills, resilience and growth take centre stage at networking event

Guests at the launch networking event for the latest edition of Lancashire Business View left inspired by powerful stories of resilience, recovery and leadership from across the county.

More than 65 attendees filled the historic Samlesbury Hall, where business leaders featured in the new issue took part in panel discussions exploring growth, skills, diversity and future workforce challenges.

Gill and Daniel Hall of Butlers Farmhouse Cheeses shared the remarkable story of rebuilding the family business after a devastating fire at its Longridge site in 2023.

Gill said: “After the fire you think that the best part of 30 years of my life was gone, but you realise you have 100 people and farmers whose cows don’t stop milking, so you don’t have time to wallow.”

She told the delegates about its story of resilience and how they were determined to continue to fourth-generation family business legacy.

She said: “You don’t survive 90‑odd years without overcoming obstacles. My grandparents had the war, my parents faced foot and mouth, we had COVID and then there was the fire.”

Gill says their rising from the ashes was deliberately local.

She said: “We felt the money would be better off staying in the community so we went to a local builder who also went to a local joiner. Everybody knew each other on the build.”

After winning a Red Rose Awards in the ‘Transformation’ category Gill said the future focus is clear.

She said: “It is a platform we can build from and the future for us is about making farmhouse cheese and making it more available for people.”

A panel featuring Andrew Dewhurst of ELLG, Emma Guthrie of Addison Project, Dharma Kovvuri of ULAN, Joanne McCaffrey of Lancashire Skills and Employment Hub and Carolanne Thompson of Amplify Success, talked about the county’s skills challenges.

Andrew highlighted a sharp fall in young apprentices where the uptake of apprenticeships for 16–18‑year‑olds is down by 40 per cent.

He added the Apprenticeship Levy has pushed employers towards training older or existing staff.

He said: “Employers perceive higher risks and training needs for recruiting 16–18‑year‑olds.”

Emma told the audience about Addison Project’s approach to apprentices.

She said: “Across our businesses we have 120 staff and 15 per cent are apprentices.  We are working with clients and skills providers to build our own training and innovation centre on site.”

Dharma emphasised the need to support young people before they enter work.

He said: “There is a challenge with the younger generation, it’s not that they don’t want the jobs, they’re not ready for the jobs.”

Carolanne shared her a schools’ perspective on the topic.

She said: “A lot of the kids don’t know about the businesses in Lancashire or the jobs out there.”

Joanne was positive about the role business can play in helping the situation.

She said: “Skills are equal, but opportunities are not.

“Businesses can help by providing work experience and giving young people the chance to develop skills.”

New analysis in the latest edition reveals that just 21 per cent of directors in Lancashire’s 100 most profitable SMEs are women, rising to 26 per cent across the county’s Big 20 most profitable firms.

Panellists Helen Clayton of PM+M, Siobhan Collingwood of Lancashire Women, Rosalyn Godsmark of Northern Trust and Sophie Gray of ICT Reverse shared their experiences.

In the magazine, Helen told us about the Blackburn headquartered accountancy and business advisory service having nine of 15 directors are women and six of 15 directors are female.

Helen said: “We don’t champion women over men, we champion everybody and the stats we have got were not intentional. It is just a product of our culture of championing people equally.”

Rosalyn talked about construction sector saying there are positives.

She said: “We’ve seen more women coming through, but not necessarily into higher management. It’s a male‑dominated industry.”

Sophie also offered an optimistic tone for the future.

“When I recruit, it’s about the best person for the job, whether it is a man or woman,” she said.

“There is a stigma sometimes that people don’t want to employ a women because she will go and have children but if you bring that woman back and introduce flexible working she will never leave again.”

Siobhan highlighted the business case saying ‘research shows productivity goes up when you have strong female representation at management level’.

Amy King and Mark Gibbons from Lancashire County Council’s Rosebud finance programme were presented with a special framed feature marking its 40th anniversary.

Delegates also heard from Eleanor Longworth of WHN Solicitors and Lauren Machin of Samlesbury Hall.

Mark Edwards operations director of Burnley-based managed security service provider Seriun, warned of the rising scale of cyber threats dealing ‘with one breach every single day where an email has been broken into’ for clients.

He urged businesses to train staff and document processes to protect themselves.

The magazine launch was powered by Seriun.