Government’s creative input welcomed

On Friday, the Government published a strategic document on the creative industries, Creative Britain: New Talents for the New Economy. The document, which follows up on a report last June by The Work Foundation, outlines 26 government-backed initiatives to support the creative industry.

Among its plans, the Government intends to offer 5,000 apprenticeships by 2012 to help people from all backgrounds enter the creative industries. In addition, it will establish a network of regional creative hubs to improve creative businesses’ access to finance. The Government will also make it easier for creative businesses to apply for a public and private-funded investment fund, known as enterprise capital funds.

Hamish Pringle, director-general of the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising, said: “It’s an impressive piece of work, visionary and high in ambition. The goals are specific and practical. Too often you hear a lot of rhetoric and not much reality.”

The IPA welcomed the Govern¬ment’s moves to implement intellectual property legislation, requiring internet service providers and rights holders to cooperate in tackling illegal file-sharing by April 2009.

But proposals made no mention of an exemption for the creative industries from what the IPA sees as the potentially damaging transfer of undertakings protection of employment (TUPE) regulations.

This article was first published on Media Week