09.02.2021: UK Music’s Director of Education and Skills, Dr Oliver Morris, has welcomed the announcement of Creative & Cultural Skills as a gateway organisation for Creative Kickstart – a UK-wide job creation scheme. 

The new scheme is aimed at transforming the lives of hundreds of young people and creating more than 500 new jobs for unemployed young people in the creative industries.

Creative & Cultural Skills (CCSkills) led a UK-wide, sector-wide, Creative Kickstart bid to ringfence much-needed funding for the sector to support the creation of hundreds of jobs for unemployed young people. CCSkills works to create a fair and skilled cultural sector by shaping skills, education and employment best practice.

Oliver Morris, UK Music’s Director of Education and Skills, said: 

“We are excited that CCSkills will be leading on what is a significant grant to ensure opportunities for employment for young people over the coming year in the creative industries. This partnership will not only open up a lot of young people’s careers but also make a significant and positive impact on the creative industries.”

As part of the bid, CCSkills joined forces with UK Music as well as many organisations across the cultural sector, including Artswork, Creative Society, Creative Scotland, Culture Counts, Curious Minds, Federation of Scottish Theatre, IVE, Skills Development Scotland, and Youth Music. 

All the organisations share a common goal: to see a more diverse range of young people progress into our sector and thrive in it for years to come.

Since the success of the application, the Department for Work and Pensions has approved  568 placements so far. CCSkills has followed this success with an ask for hundreds of more roles to be supported, that have been identified since the original submission was made.

Jane Ide, CEO of CCSkills, said: 

“Whilst there are some employers who may not have had their placements supported, we can certainly celebrate that the approved placements will support hundreds of young people into paid employment across the sector.

“Under the leadership of CCSkills and its partners, Creative Kickstart has the potential to transform the way the sector thinks about recruitment by practically demonstrating to employers the benefits of recruiting from a wider pool of talent, in turn supporting our sector at a time when it most needs this.

“We hope Creative Kickstart will provoke real and lasting positive change across our sector, at scale.”

Kickstart is a job creation scheme by The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) that provides funding to employers to create six-month job placements for 16-24 year olds currently receiving Universal Credit.

Funding covers 100% of the costs of a six-month placement, up to 25 hours a week, which can start anytime between now and 31 Dec 2021.

CCSkills has extensive experience of delivering similar job creation initiatives, having successfully delivered the Creative Employment Programme in England and Northern Ireland, and the ongoing Cultural Ambition project in Wales.