In the first blog, our Industry Champions explored the challenges around lifelong learning for creative professionals in the creative industries. The second part of our roundtable moved to consider the potential ways forward for lifelong learning, drawing on the Champions’ wide-ranging knowledge and experience of good practice.
National level considerations
Where the Industry Champions thought that national government might have a role, it was through a commitment to up-front investment to drive growth and to long-term skills plans rather than short-term, potentially politically motivated interventions. There was a recognition that not all creative employers might identify with national-level policy goals for skills intervention, which can feel abstract and removed from the immediate needs of the sector. Instead, some Champions suggested that policy design could start with place and sector-specific needs, motivations and opportunities, complementing that with more macro-level assessments of skills challenges.
Industry Champions pointed to a few areas where skills training might be supported through specific schemes, such as ensuring that learning and development requirements are attached to live projects in receipt of public funding. The Dutch government’s Creative Industries Fund NL was also highlighted as a potential model for subsidising creatives to upskill.
Others suggested that top-down lifelong learning strategies for the creative industries may not work given the diversity of the sector and that a more grassroots, place-based approach drawing on local expertise and knowledge may ultimately be more appropriate.
Keeping it local
There was some agreement that a more regional approach to skills provision might yield better outcomes for workers. London’s Good Work Standard and Manchester’s Good Employment Charter were suggested as possible models that might be scaled up and replicated elsewhere, with a special focus on involving creative industries firms. The Good Work Standard is an accreditation scheme supporting employers to implement good work practice in their organization, with skills and progression being a key pillar, while Manchester’s programme is a voluntary scheme that embeds skills development within its People Management strand. There were also suggestions of a place-based approaches to internships, where aspiring creatives might be able to gain experience in a number of local firms pooling their resources.
Exploring how civic spaces might also double as learning and training hubs was also raised, with the potential of skills exchanges and lending libraries fostering community collaboration around supporting lifelong learning. However, this was also qualified with the need for some kind of subsidy around access to studios and other learning spaces, especially since many such spaces (for example in museums and galleries) have been commercialised due to tightening budgets.
Regardless of the possible intervention, these would need strong coordinated training opportunities, with combined authorities taking the lead. This is especially true given that ‘big firms’ aren’t representative of the creative sector, and that SMEs and microbusinesses dominate. The Creative Corridors model was mooted as a possible way forward in terms of intraregional collaboration, linking creative clusters and microclusters via a common skills strategy that spans multiple local authority boundaries.
Industry can lead the way
While different levels of government have a key role to play in supporting upskilling, Industry Champions also emphasised the ways that the creative industries can drive change themselves. There was an acknowledgement that there was work to do in getting creative firms to recognise that investment in training is as much about gaining a competitive edge or building IP as it is about individual development (important though that is). One idea proposed was around how to harness the success of movements like BCorp, which embed employee training within their accreditation, for the purpose of the creative industries while giving firms a competitive advantage.
Organically developed networks of practice may also have a role to play, especially for the significant number of self-employed creatives who make up the sector. Networks like the North East Cultural Freelancers can potentially support a place-based approach to lifelong learning and understanding how these organisations might fit into the skills ecosystem is vital.
Creative education
Lifelong learning intersected with concerns about the nature and role of creative education across the UK. Industry Champions pointed to the development of the new Welsh curriculum, which embeds creative education and is supported by Arts Council Wales. Keeping an eye on what sort of changes to outcomes this has will be important in the coming years.
Given that most creative workers have a degree, conversation also focused on breaking down barriers between universities and the creative industries. Industry Champions considered how universities might best bring learners into HE institutions that might not otherwise access degree-level study through traditional routes, potentially through broker organisations matching people with opportunities. Given the pressures that universities find themselves under, there was a call for bold initiatives to continue to support creative learning and break down barriers to opportunity. Ensuring that students got the best of university and industry expertise would prepare them for a career as a creative.
In keeping with some of the discussion focused on place, there was also a call for more investment in learning spaces outside of traditional educational settings which are more likely to reach more marginalised communities such as libraries. Others pointed to some of the work that was being done alongside formal education, such as Factory International’s work in Greater Manchester offering programmes for aspiring creatives.
Conclusion
This is an important policy area, and the Industry Champions have highlighted a number of potential paths we might take towards building a lifelong learning offer for all creatives. While there are clear national level constraints on what might be possible, one of the clear messages was that there is potential for solutions developing outside of central government. Our own work will continue to look at how lifelong learning might be transformed through upcoming pieces on skills mismatches in the creative industries and creative higher education.
Read part 1 of the Industry Champions blog here.
This blog summarises views expressed during the Creative PEC’s Industry Champions Roundtable on lifelong learning. The views expressed are not necessarily the views of the author or the Creative PEC and no comment is attributable to a single individual.
