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Creative Industries

We have to work our way through that issue. We certainly think that the youth culture trust ought to be a non-departmental public body, which takes responsibility for supporting the delivery of these programmes in schools, in the same way as the Youth Sport Trust is successfully doing for sport. The creative partnerships are very different. They have evolved in different ways throughout the country and some of them take a different approach in the work that they do, understanding creativity in a rather wider context, as a skill that they want to build into the curriculum. We do not want to lose that work, because it has been very valuable, particularly with disadvantaged children and children who may have been alienated from school. We just have to work that through. The creative partnerships budget is separate—it is £120 million or £130 million—but we want the youth culture trust to take responsibility for this. I accept the issue raised by the hon. Member for Wantage (Mr. Vaizey). We have not yet found the full answer to it. Following on from the ““Find Your Talent”” programme—I am glad hon. Members on both sides of the Chamber think that it is a good idea—we have to ensure that career choices are got right. We talk about that in our paper. One initiative being developed is the ““Creative Choices”” website, which Creative & Cultural Skills, the sector skills council, is about to launch. We know from all the work that we have done that getting that career advice is imperative. I have talked about ensuring that the skill sets of graduates match the needs of industries. We are hoping that the university of Brighton can do a piece of work for us to map the competences that come out of current degree provision and to find out whether we can work with our higher education institutions, the conservatoires and others to ensure that they are giving an appropriate and relevant offer that will enable individuals to exploit that learning and experience in the world of work. We all know that the biggest barrier to the UK's success in respect of jobs is the problem that we have in relation to skills. That was highlighted in the Leitch review of skills in the UK. There is a huge ambition throughout government to grow the number of apprenticeships to 500,000 by 2020. We want to play our part in that with the creative industries, and we have set ourselves an ambitious target of having 5,000 apprenticeships a year up and running by, I think, 2018. That is very important. We have talked to employers across all sectors who have welcomed that. Indeed, I have talked to a number of computer games employers who are already taking part in the pilots for those apprenticeships. If we want to meet the diversity challenge that we have in the creative industry sector with more opportunities for under-represented groups, the apprenticeships will help us to do that. I come now to research and innovation. Four out of five creative firms are what are known as active innovators—innovation is at the heart of what they do. The way in which the industry works is changing fast. In the past, Government support for innovation has focused on work that leads to the establishment of patents, and I think that insufficient recognition has been given to the importance of the effort that leads to the development of a copyright. Computer games are the classic example that springs to mind. We have achieved and committed ourselves to important innovations. First, the Technology Strategy Board will provide £10 million for new and collaborative research and development, with a package of measures specifically to engage small creative firms. The focus will be on the underlying technology challenges and opportunities facing the sector. Secondly, last week, with the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts, I launched a £3 million creative innovators growth programme, which will be focused on bringing existing businesses through to that high growth status. The initiative that I launched involved the film industry, but NESTA is considering other sectors, too. That will involve examining new business models and how they can succeed. That is an important initiative. Thirdly, we hope that a knowledge transfer network will shortly be up and running. That will provide an opportunity for businesses to interact with one another and with the universities sector, so that we can bring together all the expertise to try to deal with some of the challenges that they face. Fourthly, the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills announced in its innovation strategy that it will commission research better to quantify the economic benefits of the creative industries, with special attention to the value added by innovation in those industries. I hope that that series of recommendations in the paper will allow us to unlock stronger research. We also talk about the role that we can have in supporting businesses. This is an interesting part of the document that hon. Members may want to talk about. We have always said that the Arts Council's primary aim is to support artistic excellence—that has been confirmed by the Brian McMaster review—but public funding for the arts can be a powerful stimulus for the creative industries, not only because of the skills that it develops, but because of the networking spaces that are provided. Quite often, it can underwrite risk that the financial markets would not be willing to accept. We have therefore asked Arts Council England and other bodies to take account of the objectives of the creative economy programme in their corporate plans and strategies.