Government-funded apprenticeships in the creative industries are likely to be inadequate to boost employment levels, according to the latest report by New Deal of the Mind. Commissioned by Arts Council England, the report explores policy options for helping young people to enter the creative industries, and calls for new measures to encourage entrepreneurialism and help those with creative talents to set up their own businesses. It criticises the Government’s scheme of ‘self-employment credit’, which offers £50 a week for 16 weeks to those wishing to set up a business, commenting that “16 weeks is generally considered too short a time to establish a business while £50 per week is seen as insufficient to act as a business start-up grant”. Furthermore, research has found that this scheme is “not well publicised… and not systematically recommended at Jobcentre Plus”.
The report urges the next government to establish an enterprise scheme, based on the former Enterprise Allowance Scheme (EAS), which was abandoned in 1989. It commends shadow business secretary, Ken Clarke, who has been canvassing for a revival of the EAS, with which he was personally involved in the 1980s. The Liberal Democrats are proposing a Creative Enterprise Fund, to be managed by NESTA,
but the Labour party has “no plans” for the
further development of its self-employment credit scheme.
Published: 12-04-2010