Businesses across West Cumbria need to engage with young people more to boost their life chances, the director of the Northern Powerhouse Partnership has said.

Henri Murison laid down the challenge to businesses of all sizes across the region and warned that the partnership – which is charged with rebalancing the economy of the north with the south – may begin to hold businesses to account if they do not get involved.

Speaking at the Britain’s Energy Coast Business Cluster (BECBC) members meeting and AGM this week, Mr Murison named five schools in West Cumbria that ranked among the top 500 in the UK which have long term disadvantaged children as a significant proportion of their students. 
In Allerdale they are Beacon Hill Community School, Netherhall School, Workington Academy, St Joseph's Catholic High School while in neighbouring Copeland, The Whitehaven Academy is also on the list.

Speaking to in-Cumbria after the meeting, Mr Murison said: “We have said for a number of years that we need businesses to pledge to engage more with young people. They can and should make the time to play a meaningful role, particularly in those most disadvantaged schools.

“The reason I was very specific about some of the schools in Allerdale is that they are in some of the most hard-pressed parts of the country. And I was glad to hear there was a governor from one of those schools in the room who is from prominent local businesses.

“We think the Government should invest more money, but I also think it is on businesses to think about how they could invest more.  That may be in terms of people or, from some larger businesses, money. I think we may see a commitment from one in the coming weeks to invest more.”

Other Cumbrian schools to make the list include Carlisle’s Richard Rose Central Academy and Furness Academy and Walney School, both in Barrow. And Mr Murison stressed that there were other schools in the county which had some of the most affluent pupils in the country.

“Cumbria doesn’t have an education problem,” he said.

“Parts of Cumbria with the biggest deprivation issues have got an issue around young people not getting on. And that’s the point – we need to think about Cumbria’s challenges in the context of those young people and getting the opportunities later in life and what we can do to change those children’s life chances.”

Mr Murison also revealed his ambition to attract more teachers to the region as one of many measures to address the challenge.

He added: “Practically speaking we need to create the environment where teachers want to train here – which is why I’m very enthusiastic that organisations such as Teach First come to Cumbria. That’s the right thing that they’re here in West Cumbria helping serve local needs.”

Teach First is a social enterprise which aims to address educational disadvantage across England and Wales.