Last week, speaking at a VLV event, Sir Peter Bazalgette, who Co-Chairs the Creative Industries Council with two Secretaries of State, Michelle Donelan DCMS and Jacob Rees-Mogg BEIS, revealed the Council had produced a sector vision with the working title “A Plan for Inclusive Growth”
“A sector vision” Bazalgette explained “is meant to be policy framework for the creative industries, more broadly than merely the screen industries.”
Sir Peter went on “That word inclusive is, I hope, will be in the title. And it’s there for two reasons. One, inclusive growth in terms of regionality, but also inclusive growth in terms of diversity and access.”
“Our industry, claims to be the beating heart of our culture. If it lives up to that claim, it has to represent all communities and get the talent from all communities.”
Bazlgette saw one answer in careers advice in schools.
“I saw a rather depressing statistic from a BFI report the other day” he explained “that said that 41% of 16 year olds polled did not know there was a career in the screen industries.
At the moment, the screen industries are growing like topsy. They have a massive skills shortage from, from makeup and carpenters to real-time game engineers, renderers, sound engineers – a shortage of absolutely everything, With our massive studio growth and, and making all the programs and making for streamers and so on – if we don’t win the hearts and minds of teenagers and make them understand what the career paths are, better definitions of what the jobs are, better definition of the career paths, we’ll never crack the access problem.”
Although Bazalgette didn’t say so, some fear that both government chaos and Donelan’s anti-woke history may delay publication. Variety reported that Donelan’s experience in higher education where she has held roles as both the minister for HE and the minister for universities – is causing concern within the film and TV industries. It said:
“She made her name as Universities Minister, not by looking at the quite considerable challenges in the HE sector […] she just picked a fight with them,” one former DCMS insider told Variety, speaking on condition of anonymity. “She was a culture warrior. […] She just went on and on and on at [the universities] about wokery and free speech. And the concern is that she is being sent to [the] Culture [department] to pick a fight.”
At a time when the government changes its tunes faster than a Wurlitzer juke box, nothing is certain
Campaign for Broadcasting Equality 