The Forum of Private Business (FPB) says its members are reporting that too few school- and college-leavers have the skills and attributes they require - their research indicates that around three-quarters of a million small businesses have had to recruit individuals with fewer skills than they had hoped for, before training them up.

"There is a clear gap between what businesses need and what businesses get when it comes to the ability of the education system to produce viable employees for small businesses," said Phil Orford, the FPB's Chief Executive.

"The results of the FPB's research prove that our members have issues when it comes to finding employees with basic attributes such as communication, numeracy and literacy, as well as more developed and specific skills that are required by individual businesses. The FPB hopes the Government takes note of what we have found and acts on our proposals."

Analysis of the research found that while small businesses consider the current labour force to have 'good' or 'very good' skills, it is considered to be 'average' by 68 per cent of small business employers, and 18 peer cent of small businesses feel that labour force skills are 'poor' or 'very poor'.

Job-specific abilities valued by employers, according to the survey, include customer service, sales and marketing skills, with 17.9 per cent deeming these to be 'crucial', 42.9 per cent 'important' and 19.6 per cent 'useful', along with specialist ITC skills (59.9 per cent 'important' or 'useful').

Awareness of health and safety is seen as another key attribute when recruiting staff (23.2 per cent 'crucial', 27.7 per cent 'important' and 32.1 per cent 'useful'). Craft skills are also valued, with 51.8 per cent considering them 'crucial', 'important' or 'useful'. In addition, 23.3 per cent deemed knowledge of specific health and safety practices to be 'crucial', 27.7 per cent 'important' and 32.1 per cent 'useful'.

However, only 11 per cent gave the labour market top marks for meeting these needs, saying it was 'very good', with 16 per cent believing it to be 'good', compared to 45 per cent who stated the skills base was 'poor' or 'very poor'.