Skillset responds to the UK Government’s Plan For Growth

 

 

The plan recognises much of the work that Skillset has been doing for the Creative Industries and provides a sound basis for it to continue that work.

Skillset’s Chair, and Chair of Icon Entertainment, Stewart Till, said: “As an industry-owned organisation Skillset is always working to make sure we have a workforce with the right skills to maintain our position as a world leader.”

Skillset is extremely pleased that the Government has reaffirmed their support for advanced and higher level apprenticeships. Skillset has played a key role in the development and running of the pilot apprenticeships for the Creative Media and Fashion & Textiles Industries, which are referred to in the Plan for Growth. These have been shown to be an extremely effective tool for building a highly skilled workforce that is trained in accordance with the needs of the industry.

“We are encouraged that, on the back of these pilots, the Government has recognised the need to expand this model and make apprenticeships more flexible to meet the needs of our industries. We also welcome the Government’s commitment to provide funding for the support of 10,000 more apprenticeship places for SMEs, and we will now work hard to secure the necessary support to meet the ambitions of our sector,” Till said.

On education, Skillset has long been a vocal advocate of multi-disciplinary teaching in creative education. This, along with strong industry partnership, is one of the key requirements of Skillset’s Tick programme, which assesses and accredits centres of excellence in further and higher education.

Skillset accreditation was identified in the Livingstone-Hope report into skills in the computer games and visual effects industries, Next-Gen, as the model for industry-education collaboration to ensure students are workforce-ready when they graduate. This recommendation is borne out by Skillset research that shows that students from Skillset-accredited courses are almost 3.5 times more likely to achieve relevant employment within six months of graduation than those from non-accredited courses.

“The Government’s plan to promote the natural links between science and business subjects and the Creative Industries is in line with our existing higher education strategy, and will help us in our work to enshrine this approach as best practice for higher education in our sector,” Till said.

“We look forward to the Government’s response to Next-Gen, which was developed by NESTA in conjunction with Skillset, and will continue to work closely with the computer games and visual effects industries and higher education to implement the recommendations of that report.”

The Government’s plans for further action on Intellectual Property rights for UK businesses and to encourage universities and business to create free-floating business modules for students in the sector align perfectly with Skillset’s strategic objectives for the coming year.

“These actions will assist Skillset in our strategic aims of helping our sector to improve ways of monetising and protecting its IP in the digital environment and developing a range of solution to meet the business and management training needs of creative businesses,” Till said.

Finally, Skillset welcomes the proposal to establish a Creative Industries Council.

“We are pleased that skills and intellectual property have been identified as key priorities for the Council to examine,” Till said. “As the Creative Industries’ voice and expert organisation on skills we look forward to working closely with the Council to address these issues.”

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For more information contact

Skillset press and PR officer Nick Sheridan on 0207 713 9854 or nicks@skillset.org

Out-of-hours: 0754 206 9110.

Notes to Editors:

The Skillset Board of Directors is made up of leading industry figures who guide every aspect of Skillset’s work. The Board is made up of representatives from all the sectors we represent across all UK nations including large and small employers, SMEs, trade associations and unions. Our Board members are: Stewart Till, CBE (Chair), Chair of Icon Entertainment UK; MT Rainey (Vice-Chair), Founder, Rainey Kelly Campbell Roalfe and Founder, The Horsesmouth; David Abraham, Chief Executive, Channel 4; Eileen Gallagher, OBE, Chief Executive, Shed Media Productions; Andrew Harrison, Chief Executive Officer, RadioCentre; Professor Stephen Heppell, Founder, Heppell.net; Betty Jackson, CBE, Founder of Betty Jackson Ltd; Christine Payne, General Secretary, Equity (on behalf of the Federation of Entertainment Unions); Dame Gail Rebuck, CBE, Chairman and CEO, The Random House Group; Peter Salmon, Director, BBC North and CEO, BBC Vision; Stephen Woodford, Chairman and CEO, DDB UK
§ Skillset’s governance structure includes representation from 117 employers, 7 trade union representatives and 34 trade association representatives. We also seek input from hundreds more employers to inform all of our work.