Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps her Department is taking to tackle skills shortages in the performing arts technical skills sector.

As the creative sectors continue to grow and build back better from the pandemic, the government understands the importance of ensuring that the creative industries do not suffer from skills shortages, including the performing arts technical skills sector. That is why the government has supported initiatives to boost training and employment opportunities in these sectors, such as the industry-led Creative Careers Programme.

Throughout the pandemic, DCMS Ministers and officials have had, and continue to have, regular meetings and discussions with representatives of the theatre sector on a range of issues. The Arts Minister Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay has had a number of meetings with theatres, both one-to-one and collectively. In February, the Minister for Media, Data and Digital Infrastructure held a creative apprentices roundtable with industry to mark apprenticeships week - this was attended by apprentices from the Royal Opera House and the National Theatre. We continue to involve the theatre sector in ongoing policy work.

At last year’s Budget, the Chancellor announced a new £7 million pilot fund to test ‘flexi-job’ apprenticeships, which will better suit the working practices of the creative industries and enable more young people to enter the workforce. This builds on the DCMS-funded ScreenSkills Apprenticeship Pilot with Netflix and Warner Media, relaunched last Summer with apprentices working across multiple productions and employers.

DCMS supports the industry-led Creative Careers Programme, which has to date showcased creative career pathways to over 115,000 pupils at over 1,500 schools across England, as well as the Department for Work and Pensions’ Kickstart Scheme through which over 8,000 creative industry placements are now available to young people across the country.

DCMS is also leading on the development of a Creative Industries Sector Vision, due to be published in summer 2022, which will set out our vision for the sector in 2030 and a long-term strategy focused on promoting growth within the sector. This includes considering the skills, workforce and talent pipeline challenges and opportunities for the sector.