Arts Group

In response to growing concerns over graduate employment (or lack thereof) David Lammy championed Internships and volunteering as access routes into jobs in a release from DBIS this morning just after midnight.

‘Of course students may be concerned, which is why we are working hard to show that real opportunities are available to them including work, further study, volunteering and Internships. Internships are great way for graduates to kick start their careers by gaining the valuable skills and work experience at a time when they face a more competitive job market.’

Yes David, ‘a great way’ for those who can afford to be exploited by organizations violating the National Minimum Wage. Thanks a bunch. Welcome to the only government who simultaneously claims to champion social mobility whilst also using unpaid work as a strategy for streaming graduates for recruitment.

Pre-Registration is now open.

The National Arts Student Summit is open to all representative (from sabbatical officers to course reps) from creative subjects across the UK.

At the Summit you will have the opportunity to debate and discuss the development of Arts Education and Employment from Primary School to the Workplace.

For more information and to pre-register your delegates please click here 

The Liberal Democrats invited the Arts Group Chair, Kit Friend, to attend the launch of their new proposals entitled ‘The Power of Creativity’ . The celebrities were out in abundance with everyone from Imogen Heap to Rory Bremner milling around the tightly packed room at the Lords to hear an address by party leader, Nick Clegg.

Mr Clegg’s speech unfortunately seemed to plaguerise uncredited one of the best known speeches by Sir Ken Robinson but we’ll forgive him this one as it is very good. Perhaps more dubious was his claim the the Arts were ‘a duty’ for any government to support, which again probably had the right sentiments behind it, but could do with a little more work on if he wants to make it party mantra. For the record Nick we’d like to be seen as a strength, an opportunity, a vital contributor to society and at minimum a partner to Government and society – not something you’re obligated to look after.

The Arts team of Don Foster MP and Baronness Jane Bonham-Carter were on hand to introduce and speak to guests, and as usual did a fantastic job of raising the profile of creativity in government. Their approachability and willingness to except input from across the sector (including inviting the Arts Group to contribute to their policy discussions) should be welcomed, and even if we’re not going to see a Liberal government elected any time soon, it’s good to know people like them are on hand to put the pressure on with the other parties.

In terms of the actual content of the proposals, the Lib Dem press release has a capable summary of the highlights, including proposals to:

”

• Change the way the National Lottery is taxed to generate more money for arts and heritage as well as for the Treasury
• Provide support for new start-ups in the creative industries and enable more businesses to offer internships and apprenticeships
• Offer all our children a more creative education by freeing up the curriculum and increasing the amount of time trainee primary school teachers spend learning about the arts and creativity
• Make it easier for small venues to host live music events by reducing bureaucracy that restricts small venues
• Make sure the regions and cities outside London do not miss out by reviewing the Arts Council England’s funding structures and creating a new administrative status for national museums that will enable them to be more enterprising and independent
• Open up the Government Art Collection for greater public use “

The key points the Arts Group pushed in consultation were around our internships work and Further/Higher Education, which both have a mixed presence in the policy.

On internships…

“a new “Paid Internship” for the first year of the next parliament, enabling hundreds of thousands of young people to work for up to three months with any employer, without cost to the business. Each intern would be paid a new “Training Allowance” of £55 per week”

The Paid internship bit and supporting a scheme with little cost to employers is a good call, but £55 a week? Half of this would go on travel in London alone, and it falls dramatically short of National Minimum Wage. In fact, if the young people are ‘to work, and not in study, this is illegal even by current employment standards. Revise it to cover at least National Minimum Wage however, and this sounds like a great idea.

On further/higher education…

Development for either of these in a tangible sense is difficult to find from the policies, but there are some good statements…

“Creativity is undervalued in our education system. All too often cultural learning is seen as an ‘add-on’ while priority is given to what is measurable through exams and league tables. The Liberal Democrats will seek to change this perception and place creativity at the heart of our education system.

Similarly, creative skills have often been inadequately supported in our society. Government needs to offer more support to the creative industries to enable them to offer training opportunities through apprenticeships and internships and to foster greater levels of partnership working to share expertise.”

It’s nice to hear Skillset and other agencies also mentioned explicitly…

“We are fully supportive of the invaluable work being done by Skillset through their academies network and training programmes and advice. We will ensure that government structures and regulation don’t form a barrier to creative organisations working in partnership with higher education providers in setting up academies and training courses.”

FE & HE aren’t mentioned explicitly elsewhere, and our input to the policy to look at making Arts education at this level more accessable by making sure materials and associated costs of study were covered by student finance appear not to have made the cut. However we’ve invited the team to join us at the National Arts Student Summit so with any luck they can be challenged to make some pledges there.

More than 200 new arts jobs across London & Essex have been given the green light thanks to NDotM (New Deal of the Mind).

Working in partnership with a range of arts and cultural organisations including the British Library, Young Vic, Lyric Hammersmith, Notting Hill Mas and the Royal Court Theatre, NDotM successfully bid for funding through the government’s Future Jobs Fund which is aimed at helping find placements for young people who’ve been unemployed for six months or more.

167 people will be recruited through local Job Centres for the jobs in London. Meanwhile, 56 jobs have been created in association with Essex-based Theatre Resource which is one of the biggest disabled-led arts organisation in the UK.

Along with other placements announced previously, this latest announcement means that NDotM has helped identify and secure funding for over 300 jobs in the arts & creative sectors since its launch last March. That’s more jobs than days NDotM has been in existence.

Martin Bright, NDotM’s founder and Chief Executive said, “This is a great start to 2010 and means that 200 young people will be starting work in theatres, libraries, design studios and arts organisations who would otherwise have been stuck on the dole , their creative potential wasted.”

The people who’ll fill the first 30 FJF funded placements at London’s Southbank Centre are expected to begin work in early March.

www.newdealofthemind.com

Two hundred years ago, the arts were seen as a diversion from productive capital. Today, creative industries have a strong role in the country’s economy and accounts for 7.3% of it. What steps do creative projects have to take to ensure the achievement of their final goal? And what obstacles will they meet along the way?

By Lemma Shehadi

These are questions that the Department for Culture, Media and Sport tried to tackle in 2007, with a commissioned report on the state of Creative Industries. This analysis made by the Work Foundation argues for creativity as a catalyst for running businesses. Creative products are assessed and gain popularity by their “expressive value”, a concept which I will explain subsequently.

Originality and creativity, the production of ideas rather than objects is what makes the Creative Industries a “pioneer” sector. Universities and high tech manufacturers, which are hot spots for new ideas, become central building blocks of the economy.  These two contribute to what is known as the knowledge economy. Similarly it is this basis in innovation that gives creative industries that lucrative potential. Furthermore, in the UK, knowledge and creativity fuelled industries thrive better than in other parts of Europe. On a tangent, the reports adds that cultural diversity, as is seen in the highly cosmopolitan cities like London, bring forth a tolerance and openness to new ideas from which the knowledge economy thrives. Creative industries function by commercialising expressive value. This is not limited to paintings and poems but new software, video games etc. “Essentially expressive value creates new insights, delights and experiences. It adds to our knowledge, stimulates our emotions and enhances our lives” (4.7) This commonality also makes creative industries unique in that their products are truly original. Playstations 2, 3 and Xbox for example, are technological enhancements of the original Playstation, however new games that emerge, with new narratives and new graphics are the marketed ‘expressive’ goods. Makers of creative products cannot predict how these will be received. As the report points out, fluctuating trends allow for some products to experience an unexpected vogue, though this is always temporary. But what such products have as a distinguishing quality is that once made obsolete, they can experience a revival. This is very true to the current fad for “vintage” clothing and accessories. A 1970’s kettle, for example, is made useless by newer, faster and more eco-friendly ones. However it is highly desirable as an antique or as a decorative object. The “expressive value” of the kettle comes into play even though its value as a technological product is nought. It becomes also difficult, with the uncertainty of reception, to predict what profits a creative product will make, and creative products cannot be sold until they are packaged and completed. It would be absurd to release half of a blockbuster in cinemas whilst the rest of the movie is still in the making. What happens then is that a lot of money is spent producing a good film with unpredictable revenue and shelf life. A man setting up a barber shop can compete with his peers by ensuring quality and value. He can hire the best hairdressers, give cheap haircuts and build on his reputation. On the other hand, an eminent film maker could ensure that the best actors, the best production team and the latest equipment be used for her film. However she cannot guarantee that the ‘expressive value’ of the film itself will appeal to contemporary audiences. The dissemination of products with expressive value involves many layers of work from various creative industries. At the core are the creative ideas, truly innovative products that earn the need of a copyright. These are disseminated and mass produced by cultural industries such as film or production companies, radio, television. If Don deLillo writes a novel, this is a product of “core expressive value”. It is awarded copyright which protects it’s expressive originality. deLillo’s publisher is the cultural industry that reproduces the book. Another sector in the creative industries, designers and marketers would get involved in producing a cover for the book and advertising such as banners and PR. Politicians and celebrities also make use of this latter sector to create a public image. It is finally important to note that this analysis explores the function of art within an economic framework. The commercial value of artistic expression is subjective to popular demand, though this changes radically and unexpectedly. Creative projects undertake a lot of risks in such an ambiguous market. However, as the report underlines, there is much demand for expressive value in almost every aspect of consumer experience, which allows creative industries to flourish and generate more ideas.

The Arts Group is calling for legislation governing the practice of work experience, internships and placements. In its “Emerging Workers” document the Arts Group puts forward the case that Government action is needed in order to protect students and graduates in the arts and creative industries.

Many arts organisations and businesses are reliant upon unpaid workers, both on work experience and on longer term placements. Whilst the Arts Group recognises that some of these organisations are run on low budgets, it is not in the interest of diversity, equality or creativity for internships to remain as the preserve of the well off.

Kit Friend, Chair of the Arts Group commented “Access to the creative professions should be based on ability, not means. As the labour market is near saturated with those financially able to take up unpaid placements, equal access to the creative professions will not be realised unless internships are regulated by government.”

The Arts Group recognises that the creative sector is made up of a large number of small and medium enterprises, and calls for funding and bursaries to be made available to employers so that they are able to continue to offer internships that are genuine training and development opportunities.

>> A pdf of the report can be downloaded by clicking here

Rereading Milburn’s report “Unleashing Aspiration” it’s interesting to note some key points that remain outstanding, and particularly relevant as we head into a year of political change, whenever and whatever the results of the General Election.

The first graph that drew my particular attention concerns the % difference between different professions compared to the family income individuals came from. This seems to be a good indicator of social mobility as much as any can be. The report makes much of the distressingly rising numbers “top tier” of professionals from well off backgrounds but the figures around the Arts is of further interest. We sit as arguably the best of the professions on this graph in terms of a drop in those from well off backgrounds, but it would be interesting to query for how many the Arts actually represents social mobility, especially in a fiscal sense.

Not Arts-specific, but also shocking is the news in chapter 2 that ‘one in six children today grows up in a workless household’ – hard to believe in a supposedly developed country…

The report is well worth a read if you haven’t already, and the summary is excellent…

Download the pdfs here

Our friends at BECTU have fantastic guidelines up on their site, spelling out exactly what makes a good work experience placement, and what employers should do to avoid violating National Minimum Wage (NMW) legislation.

It’s really good to have this stuff spelled out. Recently dealing with a student who’d been denied expenses, it turned out she was probably liable to retrospectively claim NMW too. If you are aware of anyone in a similar situation make sure to give the HMRC helpline a call for advice on minimum wage claims on 0800 917 2368, and for advice on expenses contact contact ACAS (the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service) for advice on 0845 747 4747.

In the absence of any increased legislation on the horizon, it’s vital none of us are hesitant in making use of what’s already there. With enough people claiming back the money they’re owed it will make company’s think twice about exploiting unpaid workers under the guise of internships/work experience.

Take a look at BECTU’s guidelines here

Image by Ildar Sagdejev (Specious)

The Arts Group’s first meeting of 2010 will be held on 11th-12th February in Lincoln.

Please register your details below and we will contact you with joining instructions/accomodation info.

cforms contact form by delicious:days

Following the release of UCCA Vice-Chancellor Elaine Thomas’s excellent piece calling for design to be moved into the STEM subject cluster (though the online anagram scramblers inform me this doesn’t generate nearly as neat an anagram – see the incredibly laboured NINJA) it’s imperative that the economic value of design is recognized, and thoroughout our sectors we should seek to push for increased funding support for creative subjects.

In particular, the logic behind the STEM allocation (prioritizing money towards science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) seems increasingly quesitonable as the creative industries productivity and contribution to the country’s finances has been repeatedly cited over the past few years. In emerging from the recession and looking towards globalized enterprise activity, it is essential that our creative institutions are funded properly, and not just by shovelling in international students. The future of the UKs ability to compete in the global marketplace will depend upon a balanced portfolio of service offerings, and if a core strength of domestic creatives is not in our armoury we will undoubtebly lose out to countries including China, who are openly prioritizing this sector in their strategies.

The UK government must wake up to our art schools and other institutions requiring a degree of resource that reflects the requirements of our intensive education. Learning to design, make, perform, produce and the full range of disciplines encompassed in our practices requires larges amounts of space, contact time with our staff, and a constantly evolving array of facilities and tools. It cannot and must not be reduced to a shoestring budget area, an approach that seems to be worryingly proliferated and pandering to the obselete perception of creative subjects as “soft”.