Six months ago, the Creative Industries Council asked us to set up the Skillset Skills Group and me to chair it. Our remit was to advise them on what is needed to make sure we continue to have the people with the skills and talent that will make the UK Creative Industries world-beating.

In these last six months our Group, made up of employers from across the Creative Industries, worked hard together and also consulted acrossour diverse range of sectors. They talked to their networks and brought back their comments and expertise. We all clicked around this work; we found that we are facing similar issues, similar challenges and we recognise that the skills and talent agenda is an opportunity for our collective growth, and also a barrier to our success if we get it wrong.

The same message came through your responses to the BIG QUESTIONS, our public consultation that gathered your views and ideas, and our focus groups with the education and training institutions in our networks.

On 24 January, supported by Alison Young (Pearson) and Janet Hull (IPA), I reported back to the Council with our findings and recommendations, which you can read in detail in our Report. I am delighted to announce that the Council supported our analysis and endorsed our recommendations in full. They charged Skillset to lead the implementation plan for these recommendations.

So we hope that you can also support these recommendations and help us to realise them.

The Council’s and Government’s endorsement is just the beginning. We now have to seize our moment and make things happen. If you would like to be kept informed of next steps or get in touch, please email us at cicskills@skillset.org. You can also follow up and join us on twitter via @skillsetssc and the hashtag #cicskills.