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Written question asked by Justin Tomlinson (Conservative) on Friday, 16 February 2024, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Tuesday, 20 February 2024. It was answered by Julia Lopez (Conservative) on Friday, 23 February 2024 on behalf of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.

Video Games: Training

Question

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what grant funding is available to help support training in small and medium-sized enterprises in the video games development sector.

Answer

This Government is committed to supporting the growth and success of the UK’s video game sector, as part of our ambition to grow the creative industries by a further £50 billion and to support one million more jobs by 2030.

DCMS provides support for UK video games development through the UK Games Fund (UKGF) which is investing £13.4 million over 2022-2025 to support new intellectual property (IP) and talent development in small and medium-sized UK games studios. This includes the Tranzfuser programme and Dundee Development project which mentor teams of talented and entrepreneurial graduates across the UK to develop their professional and business skills as well as their own IP. The UKGF also provides grants of up to £150k for the development of new games.

DCMS has also invested £28.4 million in the Create Growth Programme (CGP) to support high-growth creative businesses and SME in twelve English regions outside London to scale up and become investment ready. Nine regions including Greater Manchester, Hull and East Yorkshire, Nottingham and West of England and Cornwall have identified the video games sector as a priority and have developed a suite of measures to support their growth. Interventions include access to relevant workshops and masterclasses, as well as one-to-one mentoring with industry experts.

More widely, we are taking steps to build a pipeline of talent into our creative industries, which includes supporting those in, and returning to, the video games sector through interventions such as Apprenticeships, the Lifelong Learning Entitlement and the Good Work Review. There will be up to 35 regional skills bootcamps in the creative sector across 16 regions in England this year, subject to successful training provider procurement. A number of upcoming national skills bootcamps in the creative sector will be aimed at the video games sector. SME employers pay only 10% of the total cost of training existing staff during these 16 week bootcamps.

Secondary information

Type
Written question
Reference
14059
Session
2023-24
Subjects
Finance Training Small businesses Video games
Contains statistics
Yes
Link
View this Written question on www.parliament.uk