Creative, Cultural, Digital and Media Task Group
East Sussex is a growing hub for these sectors, with several clusters across the county. The Task Group meets quarterly to champion employability and skills and coordinate activities and support the strategic priorities of Skills East Sussex. The group sets a strategic plan annually in September, to drive forward partnership activities.
The Group includes representatives from local employers, these include
- De La Warr Pavilion
- Technative
- Glyndebourne
- Bark Web Ltd
- Chalk Eastbourne/Switchplane
- Spunglass Theatre
There are also representatives from education and training and other stakeholders including:
- East Sussex College Group
- Culture Shift
- University of Brighton
- Sussex Council of Training Providers (SCTP)
- DWP Job centres
The Group is jointly chaired by Kim Byford, Project Director, Talent Accelerator programme (Del La Warr Pavilion) and Sally Staples, Cultural Strategy Manager of East Sussex County Council.
Co-Chair Kim Byford, Project Director, Talent Accelerator (De La Warr Pavilion)
I am part of the task group as I think it is essential to bring together people from industry, education, support services and county council to support our thriving creative and cultural industries now and into the future.
Co-Chair Sally Staples, Cultural Strategy Manager East Sussex County Council
The cultural sector is one of the fastest growing sectors in the UK economy. The skills agenda is a complex one and through my role as Co-Chair I value the opportunity to bring together the work of Culture East Sussex (the cultural sectoral group of Team East Sussex) and the amazing work of Skills East Sussex
2024/25 Strategic Plan activities
Partnership activities | |
---|---|
1. Raise the profile of the sector | Delivery of the Digital Future Accelerator project, with funding secured from the Careers and Enterprise Company. Raising the profile of the sector by offering secondary school students the chance to be paired with a business mentor and submit an entry for a competition to find a digital solution to something they are passionate about. As well as funding extra capacity for the Transform programme to support small businesses to access apprenticeships and training. |
Access the resource and expertise of national sector bodies to support activities/raise the profile of the sector at a national level. | |
Act as the area board for the Coastal Catalyst project through funding secured from Arts Council National Lottery Project Grant scheme. Offering opportunities to raise the profile of the sector, provide business encounters and sector opportunities for young people. | |
Consider opportunities for business encounters that meet the micro/freelance nature of the sector. (eg: pilot shared work experience across businesses) | |
Encourage involvement in careers hub activities (eg Industry Champion) and share opportunities through the task group and wider networks for engagement with young people | |
2. Help industry to engage with education/ training provision to inform curriculum/ respond to industry need | Map gaps in provisions to help direct activity |
Build in real world opportunities for careers/teaching staff and students (eg Open Doors through the careers hub), as well as job centre advisors | |
Progress potential for Skills Bootcamps | |
3. Resources provision | Develop re-branding approach – simple cohesive explanation on what the sector is for use by partners. |
Map employability and skills best practice – what could be embedded or delivered in East Sussex. Eg – Eastbourne Alive learning. | |
4. Widening the net of recruitment/diversity into the sector (linked to activity 1) |
Use the micro/small nature of the sector and flexible recruitment approach this enables to encourage alternative recruitment methods to support diversity into the sector (eg neurodiverse, young job seekers etc). Using Jerwood Foundation framework as a best practice approach alongside peer sector experience to encourage involvement |
Access armed forces organisations as means to widen the pool of interest in sector jobs | |
5. Value of Maths and English in the workplace | Bringing employer voice to young people – how maths and English are practically applied in the sector (relating curriculum to real life) |
Map good practice both locally and nationally, work to embed this across the county | |
Addressing barriers of maths and English qualifications to uptake and success in employment and apprenticeships |
Creative and Digital Task Group meetings
Contact Skills East Sussex if you are a sector employer, training or education provider and want details. Other than your time, and occasional travel, there are no costs to joining Skills East Sussex meetings.
The next meeting of the group is on Tuesday 3rd December 2024.
Please find below the minutes of recent meetings.
- Creative, Cultural and Digital Media Task Group minutes 5 March 2024, held at Glyndebourne Opera House and MS Teams
- Creative, Cultural and Digital Media Task Group minutes 6 December 2023, held remotely on MS Teams
If you wish to see minutes of a meeting not listed, please email Skills East Sussex and we will do our best to help.
Task Group achievements
- Supported the development of a Tutor Encounters event for the sector building on the successful 2023 construction sector event. Offered careers and subject leads from schools and colleges to upskill so they can gain knowledge on a particular sector to help better advise and inform young people, as well as develop relationships with professionals in the sector.
- Secured £200,000 funding for the Talent Accelerator programme, led by the De La Warr Pavilion. Talent Accelerator is about creating a strategic step-change in creative and digital sector skills, careers and project-based learning. It is developing a more joined-up infrastructure between industry and education. This includes work experience, and a range of employer encounters such as careers workshops, events and assemblies. Further funding has been secured through the Coastal Catalyst project.
- Secured Ingenious funding which enabled Culture Shift project to deliver a project with Bexhill college, as well as taking on a digital marketing apprentice.
- East Sussex Library Service and the County Council's Employment and Skills Team successfully carried out an European Social Fund (ESF) tablet loaning scheme. It helped 40 ESF participants from Brighton, Eastbourne, Hastings and Wealden during the pandemic lockdowns. TechResort highlighted need for more donations of hardware to repurpose and loan out.
- Representatives from the task group worked with the South East Local Enterprise Partnership (SELEP) Digital Skills Partnership. The partnership comprised stakeholders from across the South East to increase awareness and access to digital skills training across the region.
- Introduced job role videos on the Careers East Sussex website, including programmers and software developers, marketing professionals and copywriters and cyber security officers.