Question to the Department for Education:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps, if any, they have taken to ensure that the apprenticeship scheme is suitable for the creative industries; and what has been the outcome of those steps.

Our apprenticeship reforms are placing employers at the heart of ensuring that they have the right skills in their workforce to grow their business and to increase their productivity. However, we do recognise that some sectors and employers, including in the creative industries, experience challenges in taking advantage of the apprenticeship reforms.

Improving quality is a fundamental part of our reforms to apprenticeships. We are making sure that apprenticeships are high quality, industry recognised and delivered by quality providers. Apprenticeship standards are being developed by employers themselves to ensure their relevance. Over 70 employers are involved in developing new apprenticeship standards in the creative and digital industries sectors. There are 32 creative and design and digital industries standards currently available, with 38 more in development.

As part of the Creative Industries Sector Deal, the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport is supporting the creative careers strategy by working with the Institute for Apprenticeships on the development of apprenticeship standards, classifying areas where there are skills gaps identified as Industrial Strategy priorities.

We have introduced the apprenticeship levy to encourage sustained employer investment in high quality apprenticeships and are carefully monitoring the impact of the levy in different sectors. We are also working with ScreenSkills to discuss options for how best the sector can benefit from sustainable investment in the apprenticeship training that they need.