Written Statement: Creative Sector Skills Fund

I am announcing today that more than £1.5m will be shared between 17 projects to deliver high quality skills and training projects within the creative industries. The creative industries have been one of the fastest-growing parts of the Welsh economy for nearly a decade, creating jobs and wealth, contributing to a strong national brand and promoting Wales in the world. 

This announcement is the final stage of our Programme for Government commitment to establish a Creative Skills Body.  This Body is being delivered internally through Creative Wales through an enhanced Creative Wales skills and talent function with a new core skills advisory panel to guide its work and report back to the Creative Wales non-executive board.

The Creative Skills Advisory Panel was established in May 2022 and is made up of 10 professionals from the music, digital content and screen sectors as well as union, broadcaster, training, further education and higher education representatives and a diversity and inclusion champion.

The Creative Skills Advisory Panel advised on a new three-year Creative Skills Action Plan for the music, digital content and screen sectors in Wales, which was launched in September 2022 alongside the fund. The Plan identifies the following 10 priorities for skills support:

• Business and Leadership;
• Talent Support;
• Improve Diversity and Inclusive Recruitment;
• Entry Level Placements and Opportunities;
• Upskilling Placements and Opportunities;
• Education and New Curriculum;
• Careers Awareness;
• Innovation;
• Bridging the Gap between FE/HE and Industry;
• Wellbeing of the Workforce and Support for Freelancers.

Some of the projects which have been awarded funding include:

•         New project led by University of South Wales Film & TV School, Bangor University and Screen Alliance Wales to create three new Screen Academies inside Greatpoint Seren Studios, Wolf Studios Wales and the new Aria Studios to deliver the skills, education and training that can support the next generation of Welsh talent to flourish in the screen industry;

•         Developing the skills, knowledge and networking of Welsh music managers;

•         Upskilling Welsh grass roots music venue managers;

•         Equipping leaders, managers and producers working in TV and film in Wales with the skills they need to run a successful creative business with a particular focus on commercialisation, securing funding, exploiting IP, becoming global, recruiting inclusively and succession planning;

•         New Learning Disability Inclusion training for the screen industry which aims to address the chronic shortfall in representation of learning disabled and/or autistic people on screen and behind camera;

•         An entry level Gaming Hub to support the strategic development of training provision for diverse young people which covers entry level requirements at levels 1, 2 and 3 on a BTEC framework.

The purpose of this fund is to continue to support strategic skills partnerships across Wales and I’m delighted that we’ve been able to award the funding to collaborative projects which will provide excellent opportunities for those working in the sector or seeking to work in the sector from all backgrounds.

A number of projects supported will deliver against The Young Persons Guarantee by providing training to individuals under the age of 25.  Additional projects will directly deliver against the Programme for Government commitment to create 125,000 all-age apprenticeships and the wellbeing objective to enable our tourism, sports and arts industries to thrive, further details of all these projects can be found in Annex 1.