Creative Choices

Creative & Cultural Skills (C&CS) is the youngest Sector Skills Council of the 25 in the UK, and completely unique within the network having been established as an entirely new organisation in July 2005. Despite this C&CS cover the largest spectrum of subject areas encompassing Cultural Heritage, Music, Design, Craft, Performing Arts, Literature, Advertising and Visual Arts.

The role of the Sector Skills Council is to make the link between training courses, industry requirements and government; a campaigning body representing employers and ensuring that students are learning the key skills they need to hit the ground running in the workplace.

With over a million people studying a creative or cultural course in the UK at any one time, versus only 6,500 new jobs available each year, a much more focused approach has to be taken. Training providers need to work in partnership with employers in the industry and map out a clear strategy to get training courses in line with industry needs. Students can no longer expect to wander into any degree, postponing the reality and planning of a career path until post-graduation panic sets in, but must have a clear idea of where they are going and how to get there. This is where the Sector Skills Council fits in.

Working with over 2000 employers within the creative and cultural industries, C&CS developed a 'Creative Blueprint' of the creative sector as a whole, using this informative research to pinpoint skills gaps and identify priorities for future action and development.

Providing a platform to encourage communication and debate between educators, employers and policy-makers underpins this research, making it a valuable and dynamic tool. Creative individuals have access to the resources and information they need to make training choices relevant to their creative niche, whether that be visual arts, design, literature or another discipline under the banner of creativity. These areas alone contribute £2.1 billion, £6.3 billion and £2.3 billion respectively, to the UK economy, and employ 285,000 artists, designers, playwrights, poets etc.

In July 2008, three years after their inception, C&CS are set to launch 'Creative Choices'. There are three facets to this new online resource:

• A career planning kit empowering the individual, allowing them to connect, explore and discover skills and opportunities
• Course search functionality offering ratings, reviews, comparisons and industry benchmarks
• Industry intelligence focused specifically on news, events, labour market analysis and best practice

Creative Choices is for individuals who want to get in to the creative and cultural industries, but also for those who want to progress and move up within the industry. Individuals and employers now take continuing professional development seriously and there are many opportunities for people to build their skills in the course of their careers, develop in different areas or to specialise in one key area of interest.

Rebecca Holland, Learning Information Specialist at Skills Development Scotland, responsible for working with learning providers within the creative sector commented:

"The very fact that this type of resource exists within the creative sector will be a boost to many individuals lacking a clear path and progression opportunities. Historically, the creative and cultural sectors have been under-represented by formal bodies of this nature, compared to the long-established networks for other sectors. Creative Choices can only be an inspiration, and expand on the work of the C&CS."

The Creative Choices website can be viewed at www.creative-choices.co.uk for further information.