COUNCIL chiefs are helping ethnic minority businesses to get online to compete for public sector contracts.

Bolton Council's tendering procedure has joined the electronic revolution and businesses now need systems which can link into the contract programme to effectively present tendering applications.

To help get people up to speed, workshops were organised by the council's Ethnic Minorities Business Service.

They were aimed at giving people practical guidance on how businesses could improve their turnover through tendering.

Cllr Barbara Ronson, leader of the council, said: "It gave people a good insight into the quality system and information technology infrastructure they need to have to enable them to submit tenders."