Culture, Communications, Welsh Language, Sport, and International Relations Committee

Hi, everybody. I'm Justin Lewis. I'm a professor at Cardiff University in the School of Journalism, Media and Culture, but I'm also director of Clwstwr and director of Media Cymru.

Thank you. And now Tom Ware.

Hello, morning. I'm Tom Ware. I'm the associate dean at the faculty of creative industries at the University of South Wales in Cardiff, but I also work as one of the partners on Media Cymru with Justin.

Thank you. It's wonderful to have you both with us this morning. We'll move immediately to questions, and we'll move to Alun Davies.

I'm grateful to you for joining us this morning. One of the things that I saw during the pandemic was a number of different issues emerging within the creative industries, if you like, workforce, mainly, as far as I could see, around freelancers and the position of freelancers. We know that one of the things that's happened in the industry over the last couple of decades is that it has become increasingly based on freelance work rather than formal employment. That sort of casualisation, if you like, has done a number of different things over the years, both good and bad, I think, in lots of different ways. But what seemed to me to be really difficult was the position that freelancers found themselves in during the pandemic, and the Government seemed to be at something of a loss. It didn't really understand how to deal with freelancers. Would that be fair? Would it be a fair analysis? Have freelancers recovered, if you like, as a sector, as a group of individuals, over the last year or 18 months?

Shall I kick off, Tom? Tom will have a lot, I think, to say on this. I think that diagnosis is absolutely correct. I mean, actually, it starts very much at the point of data collection, in fact, because if you look at the UK and compare the UK with other countries in Europe, we are unusual in that freelancers don't register in a lot of our data about employment. So, whenever we're doing an analysis of employment in the creative industries, we completely lose freelancers because they're not there in the data sets. That's not true in other European countries. It is true in the UK. And that means that they are overlooked often.

I think you're absolutely right—they are a particularly vulnerable part of the sector, for all kinds of obvious reasons. You're also right that they're a very big part of the creative sector—the creative sector absolutely relies on a very large freelance workforce. But, yes, they are vulnerable in all kinds of ways, and I think that they're also—. They do an amazing job. They're flexible or adaptable in all kinds of ways. But it's really important that they have access to opportunities that allow them to become small companies and to become medium-sized companies, and that there is a pipeline for them, rather than them having to worry every day about where the next commission is coming from. I think that's a structural issue that I think we need to think about.

In terms of Government support, the UK Government certainly did miss out on supporting freelancers in the creative sector during COVID. That's undoubtedly true. The Welsh Government, to its huge credit, did try and offer support here, and did a really good job. It didn't cover everything and there were holes in that, but nonetheless it was good to see that effort being made, because it was a big gap in the UK Government provision.

Can I come back on that, very quickly? You say they were holes in it, and the Welsh Government weren't able to cover everything. Can you explain to us where those holes were, and what your analysis is of why the Government weren't able to cover everything? What I'm trying to get at is does the Government understand what's going on in the sector.

I think, in parts of Government, yes. I think the emergence of Creative Wales is really useful here, because I think, at Creative Wales, there is an understanding of freelancers and the working conditions that they have. This of course happened in the very early days of Creative Wales. But, inevitably with a lot of these schemes, there are bureaucratic hurdles, particularly for early career freelancers, who were in a particularly difficult position, I think, in terms of their eligibility for the scheme. But, you know, this was early days, if you like, for Creative Wales. They had only recently been launched. I think they did a pretty good job in the circumstances, given what was going on, and I think prevented what could have been significant numbers of freelancers leaving the sector. But, Tom, you may have some more to add on this.

Yes, just to say that, obviously, the sector has historically relied on a significant number of freelancers. Currently, I think it's somewhere like 76 per cent in the last estimation. I think surveys would probably lead to a stronger estimation. Seventy-six per cent of the workforce in the sector are either freelancers or working in very, very small SMEs. And I think that the interesting thing, as Justin said, is that they're incredibly difficult to track as workers within the sector, because a lot of freelancers move between different job descriptions. They move between being freelancers and working as sole traders or working for small companies.

Anecdotally, the Welsh Government support was very welcome during COVID, and I think what we've seen since COVID has been an acceleration of what was happening anyway, which is that freelancers with in-demand skills, such as editors, which is a really good example, or production managers, have seen significant increases in their rates and also in the demand upon them. So, if you're an in-demand freelancer within the sector—it was always the case but it's been absolutely exacerbated by the pandemic and by the recovery of the sector since then—you've seen your daily rate, your income, really grow hugely over the last few years, and also the amount of work that you're being offered. So, there have been some advantages to being a freelancer in the sector, but obviously the uncertainty regarding that in that particular role is apparent and, obviously, you're very much at the whims of the market in that respect. So, there have been some benefits to being a freelancer in the sector, but I think, as Justin pointed out, particularly for early years freelancers—so, the first five years, really, in a career—the pandemic hit them extremely hard and has led to a lot of people either not re-engaging with the sector or perhaps reconsidering their options.

But that's always true, isn't it? I've worked as a freelancer and sometimes work comes, sometimes it doesn't. Such is life, and that's part of the choice that an individual makes. What I'm interested in—. We've discussed the impact of the pandemic, but I was wondering if you could give us as a committee a wider overview of where you believe the workforce is at the moment, looking back over the last, say, decade, and looking forward to the next decade, if that's possible. I use those timelines because I don't want to just focus on individual issues but a broader overview of the sector and some of the challenges facing it.

Tom, do you want to go?

Yes, just to say that, obviously, what we've seen in Wales in the last decade has been a huge boom in high-end drama production. So, it's really the screen industries. The growth of the screen industries in Wales has been significant, and that's been led almost entirely by high-end drama production, the inward investment of what we call SVOD, subscription video on demand, so, streaming service providers, people like Netflix, Amazon, but also the BBC and Channel 4's commitment to the nations and regions has seen a big growth in the sector. It was obviously hit by the pandemic, but it recovered very quickly after about three months where everything stopped in 2020. And that boom is continuing. If you look at some of the studies, a BFI study recently is suggesting that there is going to be an extra 20,000 workers needed within the sector in the next five years. Even a low forecast there is saying 15,000, so—

So—. Excuse me. Excuse me. Fifteen thousand or 20,000 is a good number, isn't it, but what would they be doing? Where are these numbers?

So, that's across the board in terms of high-end drama production. So, it's a combination of different skills, such as the skills connected to studio production. So, it might be set construction, it might be vocational skills like that, but also television production, directors, editors, cameramen, crews, costume—all the associated jobs connected to drama production in a studio.

Okay. Sorry, I interrupted you.

So, we've seen that as well as a commitment in terms of what is called unscripted production. So, factual production has grown within Wales as a direct result of Channel 4 and BBC's increased commitment to production in the nations. We've seen that happen.

In terms of the broader creative industries, and it's not an area that I know so much about, but the music industry has been impacted heavily by the pandemic, particularly the live music industry. Obviously, the music industry was reliant on recordings to make money, and then it shifted the way it made money towards the live industry, and obviously the live industry was hit very badly by COVID. So, I think that's going to take much longer to recover. But, certainly in terms of the screen industry, I think it's very healthy, generally speaking. I think that the number of production companies operating within Wales has grown significantly. Many of those are smaller companies; many of those are reliant on traditional broadcasters—the BBC, Channel 4, S4C—for the majority of their work. And then you have the incoming production companies that come in to make drama production. So, that's really the general picture, I think.

I'd just agree very much with what Tom said. I think it's a mixed picture across the creative industries, as Tom indicated. I think, in film and tv, we've seen expansion, and great expansion in Wales. Wales is a huge success story in that sector, and really going from strength to strength and is becoming now, I think, seen as a kind of global powerhouse in the UK. It's now the third biggest employer of film and tv—the Cardiff capital region—in the UK, after London and Manchester. It's overtaken a number of other cities. And all of its growth indicators are really, really strong. So, a very positive picture on that front.

The music industry is very different—all the underlying trends in the music industry are bad. The shift towards streaming services has taken a huge amount of money out of the music industry. COVID was obviously a massive blow as well. So, I think the music industry is struggling and will continue to struggle until we find other economic models to support the music industry.

So, there are differences, I think, across the creative industries, depending on the way, I guess, that digital disruption has impacted different sectors, because it is different across the piece. So, I think there are a lot of positives here, but I would say that it's fragile. And one of the things that Tom and I are keen to work on, through Clwstwr and through Media Cymru, is to try and decrease the fragility in the creative sector. It is a sector that relies on freelancers, and those that aren't freelancers tend to be small companies: 96 per cent of companies in the creative industries in Wales are small companies. So, they're very vulnerable; they don't necessarily have the capacity to innovate, to do research and development to enable them to grow. What we've been about in Clwstwr and what we're about in Media Cymru is trying to provide that support to do that.

And I guess another positive is that we're in a fortunate position in Wales in that we've been given—the largest UK Research and Innovation award ever given to the creative industries has been given to us in Wales. So, that's a nice boost. That enables us to do some work, but that's something we need to build on.

I'm grateful to you both for that. [Interruption.] Sorry, can I just pursue one of these threads, please? It's always good to hear—and, frankly, we don't hear it very often from witnesses—of that level of success and growth, it would seem, in the economy. I think that's a very positive thing. I'd like to ask you both for the reasons for that, because one of the things that I found very striking in your analysis was that you spoke about the different streaming services and the rest of it. What you didn't major on were the more traditional structures, if you like, and pillars of the industry. You didn't really mention the BBC or ITV or S4C, and I'm interested as to what has led to this success. Has it been the actions of Government? Has it been the deliberate actions of broadcasters or streamers, or has it been chance?

I think on—

Justin, forgive me for interrupting you, but if I could appeal to you for as brief an answer as possible, because I'm afraid—I know that this is very important—we're going to have to move on in a moment. Forgive me interrupting.

Okay. Just very quickly from me, you're absolutely right: those broadcasters are pivotal. I think Tom indicated that in his previous answer. They are pivotal. I think that the move, the policy move, those broadcasters made towards more commissioning outside London and the south-east has been also pivotal. So, I think there are a number of structural conditions that have been really important here. The role of Channel 4 is also really pivotal and that's worth mentioning, just because of the prospect, potential prospect, of privatisation, which I can only see as having negative impacts on Channel 4's investment in the region. I can't see any positive impacts at all coming from that. So, the PSBs provide a crucial base for this. We've probably majored a bit more on the SVODs because they explain some of the obvious expansion, but that base is absolutely crucial.

Okay. That's very clear. Tom.

Yes, the SVOD growth is absolutely at the moment within the broadly Cardiff capital region, so, if you step outside the Cardiff capital region and look at the rest of Wales, it's still heavily reliant on the PSBs, particularly, obviously, on S4C, for Welsh-medium content, but also on the BBC. So, if you look at clusters in north Wales and in west Wales, they're almost totally reliant on those broadcasters. The growth of inward investment from the streaming services is really restricted to the capital city region.

Okay. Thank you for that.

Thank you for that.

We'll move on now to Heledd Fychan.

Thank you very much, and good morning to all of you.

I just wanted to follow on further from some of the points you've been raising already. You've mentioned some of the ways you're involved in terms of supporting the sector, but what further role do you think private and public organisations have in tackling poor pay, precarious work and problematic working conditions?

It's a great question, and it's one that I know Tom and I often discuss. It is an issue, there's no doubt about that, and I think, when we look at skills as an issue—and Tom will have a lot to say on this, because he's kind of leading efforts in this area—there's no doubt that part of the skills problem is to do with people leaving the sector because working conditions are stressful, long hours, all sorts of practices that are not, if you like, conducive to a kind of workforce that's stable and supported and trained and developed. So, yes, those are real issues, and I think we need to work together to tackle them, because I don't think it's down to any particular one employer, because it's a structural issue. If commissions work in a certain kind of way, then independent companies are forced to respond in a certain kind of way. So, I think it's a structural issue that needs to be addressed. It's complicated; it's not a simple one, but I do think it does need addressing. But, Tom, I know that you'll have a lot of thoughts on this.

There are a number of different issues here, obviously, as Justin highlighted, particularly in television. The business model is based, essentially, on short-term commissioning—so, a broadcaster or distributor will commission a series for delivery or a programme for delivery—and the timescale one that is always concertinaed. It's always very short. It's very rare that you get long-term commissions or repeat commissions given easily. So, most companies are working to very tight deadlines, those commissions happen very quickly, and they want turn around those series or productions very quickly, which means, of course, that they're always looking for staff at very short notice. So, again, employment practices obviously reflect that service industry culture, if you like, where it's very short-term, you're always looking for people to deliver something at short notice and therefore you often don't look beyond the immediate people who you've worked with before, or the people that you know, so there's a lot of word-of-mouth hiring and firing as a result of that.

More generally speaking, I think what happens with freelance culture is that it tends to calcify people's skills. Once somebody becomes—. If you become very good at a particular role, and that role is much in demand, obviously, the opportunities, or the necessity, for you to upskill or change your skill set is reduced. But also the time, the capacity, that you have to engage with skills and training programmes is lessened, and we find that there are actually a lot of skills and training programmes within the sector offered by different organisations, but the take-up isn't always that great, particularly among freelancers, who don't have the time or the capacity to take some of those.

So, I think what's needed is a much more connected, much more structured approach to skills and training that allows people to engage with it; I think a much more joined-up approach, if you like, in terms of skills and training providers; and also for broadcasters, commissioners, to take maybe more of a responsibility to the sector in terms of longer-term commissions, particularly in repeat returnable series, of which we now—. Thanks to the changes in commissioning, we make a lot of returnable series for the BBC and for S4C in Wales—and Channel 4—so, the opportunity is there to create much more kind of longer production structures that allow people to upskill people within their own companies, but also to train people for the long term.

So, again, it's a very nimble sector of the economy, and that's obviously one of its strengths. I'm sure we'll always be heavily reliant on freelance work, because the incentive is there to do that, but, at the same time, especially as we move towards a world where technology means that, with things like the games sector and screen sector, there's a confluence of skills there, especially in studio production where new skills are needed, or, indeed, people who need to adapt their working practices to suit new templates, the opportunities are there to create much more of a ladder of skills and training that doesn't currently exist once you get into the industry. Obviously, we train people up at entry level, but those transferable skills and that upskilling within the industry is not really incentivised at the moment.

Just to follow up on that, can I ask who do you think should be leading on co-ordinating that work? Obviously, you've mentioned that there are a lot of different players and there needs to be collaboration if we are to change things. So, who do you think should take a leading role in ensuring that happens?

I think it needs to be a joint effort. Can I just give an example of that? One of the things that we're doing at Media Cymru is working with the BBC, and we just launched this literally last week. What we're doing is a joint commissioning process with them where what we're going to be able to fund is the R&D innovation stage prior to the content commissioning. So, we will fund independent companies to do R&D to try and think about how they might develop their IP around a specific bit of content. If you can create a new format, that is much more valuable than simply creating content that's a one-off, shown once, and that's something we need to do more here. But we'll be funding that alongside the BBC, who will then commission the work that comes out of it. So, it's a piece of commissioning that has innovation, training, skills development built into it that gives independent companies more time to develop. So, that's a kind of mixed approach.

I think that Heledd wants to come back.

Yes, if I may. I think that's a great example, but in terms of who should lead—. Because that's obviously Media Cymru in partnership, and I'm sure there are countless other examples. But is there a key role? Is it Creative Wales? Is there someone—or is it the broadcasters—who should be leading on ensuring that there's a strategic approach, rather than individual fantastic things happening or collaborations?

Probably it's Government in collaboration with the broadcasters. I think that would be the place where you'd start.

Great. Thank you. If I may just ask about one strand in terms of the evidence you've submitted via Media Cymru. We've already covered things like the challenging working conditions, but there was a specific reference to workplace bullying, as well. I'm just wondering how can we tackle this. Do you think it's as a result of the working conditions and some of the things that you've emphasised in terms of the commissioning cycles and so on? How huge a problem is this in terms of people perhaps leaving the industry or in terms of how they feel at work?

Workplace bullying obviously exist within the industry. Anecdotally, you hear about that. I think what's more pressing for people are what you consider to be unreasonable working practices. People work very, very long hours, especially when they're working on set, on location. There's a rigidity to the working structures there that pressurises people. For instance, a good example would be if you've got small children and you're working in a studio where you're working 16-hour days. The studio might have a nursery on site, but if you don't actually get to see your children at all, it's immaterial where the nursery is. I think that the industry recognises that there are practices within it that need to be addressed, and those practices inhibit people, as well, I think, from a broader range of social backgrounds entering and remaining within the industry. So, it needs to do that, but I don't know, or I have no evidence to suggest, that bullying per se is widespread. It's more about practices that have been accepted, possibly, particularly in terms of these very pressurised drama productions where people work extremely long hours over considerable amounts of time. I think that is a real inhibitor to people remaining within the industry.

Thank you for that. We'll move on now to Hefin David.

My questions are on equality, diversity and inclusion. It's a very broad area and very difficult to do more than scratch the surface in a couple of questions. But, my opening question would be: there are people who would benefit from being involved in the creative industries, who would be talented in the creative industries, but they are the ones who would find it hardest to access, so what is being done to help people in those circumstances?

I think an awful lot more needs to be done to help people in those circumstances, and I think it's something that we as a university are very, very keen to promote and keen to act on, firstly with localised training and skills provision.

Transport is a big issue within the screen industry, as it is in other industries. Most dramas film on location, those locations are not accessible by public transport, most people are required to arrive at those locations very early in the morning. So, if you haven't got your own car and the ability to drive, that already is a huge inhibitor, especially at entry level. I see it with my students and graduates all the time. They're offered fantastic opportunities to work on these productions, and if they haven't got a car or access to transport it's just—. And that's within Cardiff. Once you go up to north Wales, you can imagine that's exacerbated hugely by the fact that everything's much more drawn out. So, that's one issue. I think there have already been some initiatives to deal with that. There was a transport fund announced by ScreenSkills through BFI last year that was piloted on one production. So, there is that.

But, more longer term, I think there needs to be much more of a real analysis of employment practices, of hiring practices as well. Because again, the short-termism of the industry works against employing people from broader, diverse backgrounds. When I say 'diverse backgrounds', really I mean lower socioeconomic backgrounds. Obviously, that's reflected in the ethnic diversity of people, but it's people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds who find that inhibiting. So, I think we need much more transparent ways of employing people and a much more constructive approach to that.

We're looking at things like mentoring schemes, which we're really keen to promote at the moment. We're looking at ways that companies can take on work placements from our courses, or graduates directly from our courses. We're looking at how we can connect up with FE colleges in order to open up opportunities for students and entry-level talent to get into the industry. I think that's how we have to build up, from the ground upwards.

I've worked in the screen industry for about 30 years and, over the course of my career, I've seen a lot of the ladders to opportunity that I had myself be taken away as companies have become much more focused, much more short term, and much more based on freelance talent. So, I think—

Can you just give some examples of those ladders? What are the ladders you mean?

I mean things like paid work placements—a key opportunity. If a work placement isn't paid, then obviously somebody from a low socioeconomic background can't take time off from their other job to do that. That's at entry level. Again, short-term contracts militate against people being able to move. We're lucky now in Wales that you can actually find employment within Wales. There was a time when, certainly in the screen industry, you would have to leave Wales to build your career. That doesn't happen anymore, but what does happen is people are asked to move at very short notice, to travel long distances to set, or to take up a new job, and there's no support for that. So, I think short-termism in terms of entry-level contracts is a real issue. And a commitment by the employers to upskill. Again, if somebody at a junior level is a freelancer, there is no commitment from the employer beyond the immediate. So, I think they're all things that people do experience now that I perhaps didn't experience. I think people at that level are being asked to work extremely long hours, to provide their own transport, and to have no job security in any way. I think all of those three things do prevent people from entering the industry, or remaining within it.

Just before I move on to Justin, I just wonder—. Obviously, you're in a university position looking at this; what about if there are young people in school, aged 14 and 15, who are interested in this? Is it hard to access those kinds of people to encourage them to think about the creative industries? Are schools doing enough?

No, and we have really stepped up our outreach to try and—. We work with Screen Alliance Wales as one our partners, and Screen Alliance Wales have got a fantastic outreach programme to schools. I think, at the moment, we're in a strange situation where, for me, the number of opportunities particularly within the screen industries has grown hugely in the last few years, as we've said, with those BFI figures, but, actually, the number of students applying for our creative courses has dropped, and that's not just for us, that's across the board within Wales. That's really partly a result of the emphasis on STEM subjects that happened in schools, which is a long-term thing, but it's more specifically about educating teachers and careers advisers within schools to recognise this opportunity. So, we're engaged in a very broad programme to raise awareness within schools. Obviously, our focus is largely in south Wales, but, again, working with Screen Alliance Wales, we're working to do the same thing in north Wales, and to work with FE partners as well, because it's in everybody's interests to make sure that people are aware of the opportunities that exist within the screen industries.

That's really helpful. Justin, did you want to come in on anything there?

I absolutely agree with what Tom's just said. All I'd add is that it is something where, I think, with the right structural conditions, you can shift the dial a little bit. We're working very hard in Media Cymru to try and do that, we're working with Boom and Rondo around looking at ways to make the sector more inclusive, we're working with a company that are called Unquiet Media on looking at new issues around neurodiversity, we're working with Cardiff Productions on access across a range of different ethnic groups to the industry. So, these are, I think, things we can address.

Just one very quick story about our experience in Clwstwr. When we first started Clwstwr, which was all about innovation in the media sector, and we held our first ideas labs to encourage freelancers and others to come along and develop new ideas with us, 95 per cent of the people that showed up were male. And we realised that we've clearly got a problem in the way that we're doing things, so we shifted a lot of things. We shifted not only the way we communicated what we did, but also various structural conditions. It became clear that if you were going to get good freelancers to take part in these development opportunities, you had to pay them; you had to make sure that things like childcare were covered. And once we did all those things, the dial shifted completely. It went from 5 per cent female-led companies being involved to 50 per cent, to, by our last funding round, 66 per cent. So, structural things can be used to change these things. But, yes, I think the kinds of initiatives that Tom is talking about are absolutely necessary.

But also just to confirm, the working practices thing does need to shift in terms of employment and how people are employed within the industry. It needs to move towards the kind of employment practices that we would expect in Welsh Government, or in universities, where you would expect certain standards to allow equal opportunities for all.

And just so that we can understand how things may improve, how reliable is the data that we've got at the moment? Is it thorough and reliable and does it reflect what is going on, or do you think we need to improve our understanding of what's happening?

I think that there's always a big time lag with data. The big data sets, like the Fame database, essentially are looking at a two-year time lag in terms of when the data is collected, collated and presented, to knowing what's going on, which is a bit of a problem. It means we need to do one-off pieces of work. Tom is leading on this around skills. It does mean that that data collection is really important for us to know where we are, what's going on, what the problems are. And I'd say, at the moment, we have a lack of data in this area, rather than a surplus of it.

Just to add to that—sorry, just to put in a plug—we've just launched, as part of Media Cymru, the screen workforce survey, which is a survey looking very specifically, for the first time, at the workforce, which includes games, but it's also very much driven by the workforce itself, rather than the employers. And our aim is to reach out very specifically to target the sizeable freelance element of the workforce and ask some quite challenging questions in terms of any hindrances they've had to upskilling within the industry, any reasons why they may have left the industry at any time. So, it's actually to dig beyond the basic census level of the some of the surveys that we—

Where would I find that data Tom?

When will you find it?

Where would I find it?

You’ll find it when we’ve actually completed the survey. The survey’s just gone live last week, it completes at Christmas, and then we should publish by March.

As quick as you can, please. [Laughter.]

Are you happy for us to move on, Hefin? Okay, thanks for that. We’ll move on to another Tom now, Tom Giffard.

Diolch yn fawr. Can I talk about skills and training? I wanted to ask about the Welsh Government’s creative skills action plan, and what your honest assessment of it is, and whether it identifies and mitigates gaps in skills and training.

I think the creative skills action plan is a good starting place for us, and in terms of laying out Creative Wales’s stall as areas that it would support. Obviously, it wouldn’t surprise you to learn that we’re bidding for some of the skills and training funding that has been identified by that.

I think the key thing for me is that skills and training—. The misconception among some people is that there’s a lack of skills and training. There’s an awful lot of skills and training, actually, when you start digging around the sector. The problem is that it’s very reactive, and it’s reactive to short-term needs. What I think is still lacking, although hopefully that’s the next step beyond this plan, is a really joined-up approach to how those different skills and training providers, including ourselves as universities and also FE colleges, can really form part of a much bigger network of provision that can deliver skills and training to the right people, which means delivering it locally, and I think there is a big role to be played in terms of encouraging local communities and graduate school leavers, entry level talent, and people with transferable skills in local communities to engage with that skills and training, because it becomes meaningful.

So, I think delivering it locally, delivering it in a much more structured way and building on that plan to react to the changes in the industry, which, in terms of screen, are obviously driven by that confluence of technology—what people refer to as virtual production, although nobody really knows exactly what they mean by that term. But certainly studio-based production and high-end drama production, which is where the future demand is for workers.

Tom, I think the other Tom wants to just come back on some things.

Just really quickly, when you said about the way skills are being delivered by the sector, quite reactive to short-term needs, can you give me an indication or a feel for some of the longer term structural skills gaps that that’s causing? What skills are they that are specifically missing as a result of that approach?

Well, I’ll give you an example that is longer term, which is to say that there’s a consensus that everybody understands that the games industry is going to contribute hugely to the development of screen going forward. The technology on which the games industry’s based is now synonymous with the technology that’s used to create high-end visual effects within something like His Dark Materials. That technology was developed based on games technology. So, everybody talks a lot about that, but at the moment, actually, nobody is really setting out a programme to help people to develop skills, or build their skills in that area, that can lead to a sustainable workforce in that area. So, people might invest in the technology, but there is no skills and training that goes along with that. A lot of the skills and training provision that exists currently, I would say, is very short-term courses aimed at a market of graduates or younger talent who feel that they want to upskill to become a director or something like that, or a screenwriter or something like that. So, I think less thought has gone into the longer term development of people, say, for instance, in the games industry or the performance industry, to incentivise that talent to engage with the screen industry as a way of broadening the talent base, but also developing their own skills.

And is that something that can be done from a governmental perspective, to say, ‘These are the long-term skills that we will need’, or is it—and the examples you’ve cited are emerging technology—that it is quite hard for a Government to keep up with? Would that be fair?

We can’t rely on the Government to do all of this. I think the industry needs to engage, and I think the engagement of industry with skills and training is a moot point, because in other industries I think perhaps less emphasis would be placed on Government intervention to plug the skills gap, and maybe the industry needs to step up. I think we, certainly, as universities and our FE partners also need to recognise those gaps and develop programmes that are suitable. In future, as well, I think transferable skills will be a big part of that. We see how the industry loses people, and often—. Some recent studies have suggested that, actually, the shortage of talent is to do with that, rather than a lack of suitable entry-level talent. I just think that a longer, more joined-up approach is what's needed to deliver that skills and training locally. I think that's really crucial. It has to be delivered somewhere where the benefits of that can be felt, because then that can engage people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, as we said previously.

I'd just add a couple of other things. One of the things across Welsh Government, and Government generally, is that it's much easier to have skills support programmes that are oriented more towards larger companies, in terms of apprenticeships and other kinds of schemes. They're just easier to do with larger companies. That doesn't work for the creative sector, which is mostly very small companies. So, making sure that we have a skill support strategy that works for companies of 10 or fewer people in them, which is most of the companies in the creative industries in Wales and across the UK, is absolutely key here as part of this.

The only other thing I'd mention—and it comes back to a previous question—is, historically, the PSBs have played a key role in training and development, and well-funded public service broadcasters do play an important role, or can play an important role here to bring people along, which is to broaden and strengthen the skills base across the piece.

And just one final question—I think, Tom, you've touched on this a little bit—but what do you envisage the role should be for private sector companies in terms of improving training and skills? What's the role for academia? I think we've talked a little about Government and the industry more generally, but how can the private sector and academia feed into that?

On this, if I could appeal for as brief answers as possible because I'm aware of the time with this, please.

I think work placements, but also mentoring. The Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 puts a big emphasis on the importance of mentoring. I think mentoring within companies is a way that can really contribute to the development of new talent. I see it again and again, our graduates going to companies, and it's not the initial employment—not the first six months—but it's what happens next: how can they be developed next, who can take them under their wing and develop their skills so they can be net contributors to the economy very quickly? So, I would say that mentoring is really, really important, and the connection between what we do as educationalists, as training providers and the companies needs to be strengthened much more. We need to really engage with them, and be supported by Government to do that.

All I'd add, just very briefly, is it's easy to say, more difficult to do, but where we see higher education institutions, industry and Government working together on this, and collaborating in a serious way, then we're much more likely to get things done.

Happy? Okay, great. That was very brief, thank you.

We will move finally to Carolyn Thomas.

Thank you. Can I just go back to strengthening the skills and the sector outside of Cardiff as well, which has been mentioned quite a lot here? As a north Wales regional Member, I would mention that. I know that there are further and higher education establishments in north Wales offering courses; we've got some great theatres in north Wales, and there's a BBC studio in Wrexham and Bangor as well. There does need to be more strategic working between them. I had a conversation with somebody just a couple of weeks ago about that, where they're hoping to do that, but when Heledd asked the question about who should lead on it earlier, whether it should be Welsh Government, I've heard a bit about Creative Wales today, which I didn't really know much about before. So, is there a Creative Wales base in north Wales? Would they be able to help this happen? I don't know, so I was just wondering if you could answer that question.

So, we're just in the process of developing some screen academies that connect up to—. There's the new Aria Film Studios—I don't know if you're aware of it—which is owned by Rondo Media, based in Llangefni on Anglesey. It's also part funded by Creative Wales and S4C. The ambition for that studio is to create Welsh-medium content, but also to be a studio where incoming productions can use some of that. Our intention is to develop, with the support of Bangor University, an academy base within that studio that links to other academies in the studios in south Wales, but also very specifically addresses some of the talent shortages connected to Welsh-medium production, of which there are many and they're very specific. I think those talent shortages can be very comprehensively addressed, partly by having that facility, again, within that Welsh-speaking community and within north Wales, but also one that's dedicated and connected up to a broader talent development structure.

Okay. Sorry, I do remember, actually, hearing about that recently—we get lots of e-mails about things. There are also other independent producers as well, again, that I think are struggling—I was talking to someone a few months ago. So, I just think this strategic approach and better collaboration is something we need to go for—it's just how to make it happen.

I just need to ask about support, if that's okay. So, I've got a couple of questions on that. Do the workforce, do you believe, need further public support, or support from public sector bodies, in relation to the increased cost of living, more broadly? So, before, you mentioned childcare is really important, and transport, but just generally, public sector support. And also, the arts council raises the idea of a basic income as well. I see a lot of the employment is short term, isn't it, freelancing, so this idea of a basic income pilot. I have my own ideas on that, but what are your ideas on that, and is it the best use of public funding? Thank you.

Oh, that's a big question. There's no doubt that there are lots of potential solutions; that is potentially one of the solutions to, I think, the precarity of labour in the creative industries. And here, I think we're talking about big differences in the sectors, actually, across the creative industries. So, some creative sectors are much better paid than others, and in some parts of the creative industries, pay is routinely very low, so it's a real issue there, particularly when you're moving from one job to the other. We saw that absolutely during COVID, where, suddenly, for a large number of creative industry freelancers, work just dropped off a cliff. So, that forced many of them to move away from the creative sectors. So, it depends a bit on the sector, but that certainly would be a solution—there may be others as well. But for a sector that does rely on freelancers shifting from one commission to the next, some way of allowing that to happen in a way that increases the possibility of sustaining a career like that could only be a good thing. At the moment, one of the things that we see is freelancers often moving away from freelance work. So, they're freelancers for quite a while, and then they'll just say, 'Look, this is too difficult, I'll get a job for this company here, I'll have a pension, I'll have various other things that, in the longer term, I'm just going to need.' So, making a workforce that is largely freelance less precarious is clearly something that there are various policy mechanisms to deal with, but that would be one of them.

Tom, do you want to come in?

I think the truth is, certainly in screen, most freelancers, when they're actually in employment, are earning relatively good wages, and I think that it would be difficult to make a case for supporting them over other areas of the economy. But I think, as we've alluded to earlier in this conversation, there is specific help around transport, and also at lower entry level in terms of skills and access to supporting skills and training if you're a freelancer or if you're a small business. That makes a huge amount of difference, in terms of the capacity to access that kind of skills and training. So, I think probably it's in and around rather than actually supplementing their income—it's in and around an income, probably, where the investment would have more impact.

Okay. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you. I think, finally, we've got another question from Tom Giffard.

Sorry, just on Carolyn's opening question, I think, I think you talked generally about the strength of the sector in south Wales, in the context of Carolyn's question about north Wales. But I think the point about south Wales is that, sometimes, we can get caught in the trap of, 'For south Wales, see Cardiff.' So, I'm quite interested to know what the health of the sector outside of Cardiff, in south Wales, looks like? What does that look like in Swansea, what does that look like in west Wales, what does that look like in Newport? Or is this just a strength that is solely reliant on the capital city?

There's no doubt the capital city is important. If you look at all the data, that's where the most intense clustering of the creative industries is—it's in Cardiff. But, nonetheless, across south Wales and the region around Cardiff, there's a lot of strength. There's a lot of strength in Swansea, in Newport, in Bridgend, in many other parts of the Cardiff capital region, and stretching through to Swansea. So, we do see that strength, I think, across south Wales. The distances are short between them; you can see how, as a regional cluster, it works quite effectively. So, I think it's broader than that. One of the things that we do when we look at data sets is we look at Cardiff, we look at the Cardiff capital region and then we look at all of Wales, and you tend to see the greatest concentration in Cardiff, but a degree of concentration across the Cardiff capital region and then less so across Wales, although there are other clusters in Wales as well. The largest one is obviously Cardiff.

I guess the other point I'd just make is that I think it's important not to pitch those against each other. Clearly, if we're going to grow things in Cardiff and the Cardiff capital region, we need to make sure that growth does feed out across the piece. But, nonetheless, there's no doubt that having clusters of expertise and skills is advantageous too. So, you don't want to disadvantage one against the other; I think you want to see both grow, but in ways that complement one another.

I think in terms of—. If you look at the screen industry more broadly, more globally, the real clusters are—there's an M4 corridor cluster, which obviously stretches across to Bristol, and you can think of that as almost like a supercluster in south-east Wales. And then you have the A55 corridor in the north, where work often travels across from Salford Quays, which is the second largest production centre in the UK behind London and ahead of south Wales. So, they're really the two areas. So, in global terms, I think, that's how the screen industry sees itself, and talent travels up and down within those areas.

Okay. Great.

Well, Thank you very much. Our time is almost up, so may I thank you very much for your evidence this morning? There may be a few things that we'd like to follow up with you in writing, if that's okay. And also a transcript of what you said will be sent to you just so you can check that it's an accurate record of what's been said. But thank you for your evidence this morning. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thanks.

Thank you very much.

Members, we will now take a break until 10:40. We'll just wait to see that we are in private session. Thank you once again.