Screen Industries Workforce Development Partnership

Employers and training providers came together on January 30th to continue working on the skills needs of the screen industries across Berkshire. This second Workforce Development Partnership meeting was hosted by New Directions College in Reading and led by our Employer Champion Dominique Unsworth, CEO of Resource Productions. Simon Barrable from the Thames Valley Chamber of Commerce Skills Unit explained Workforce Development Partnerships and their ways of working. These have now been set up across many of the priority sectors for the region, to build dialogue, understanding, and collaboration between employers and training providers.

Dominique gave an overview of the work of Screen Berkshire in helping to facilitate productions, train and develop new talent, recruit and retain new staff, and share best practices. We had a great presentation from Windsor Forest Colleges Group Karen Griffiths and Jamie Davies, together with James Hakesley from CUBE Studio. They are collaborating to establish a new Screen Industries Zone at Windsor including a virtual production studio, 7 editing booths, as well as podcast, recording, and DJ studios. The collaboration with CUBE ensures the facilities and curriculum will be closely aligned with industry needs, providing a through put of future talent. The development is partly funded by the Local Skills Improvement Fund, government money to help meet the skills needs identified in Local Skills Improvement Plans.

Other education and training providers outlined their provision for the sector, with Abingdon & Witney, Activate, Henley, Newbury, and New Directions Colleges all represented. A roundtable discussion with employer input produced a series of actions to take forward including work on sustainability skills; ‘train the trainer’ sessions for college staff; building course content that matches industry needs; training on self-employment and working on an apprenticeship model for the sector.