A wider pool of talent

Two speeches recently by Culture Secretary Sajid Javid and his opposition counterpart Harriet Harman have challenged our theatre profession and the wider arts professions to recruit a much broader range of talent. Lenny Henry in his speeches and personal commitment rightly shames the whole of the creative sector – not just the BBC – to do more to create an equal and fair world for all.

Since leaving the Royal Shakespeare Company in 2012, I have become the Chair of Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts. I am intrigued to see if I can help young, talented people find their way into the business of the arts. I trained as a stage manager, graduating as we all did in 1977 with a Diploma in Drama. Now, Mountview students leave with a BA or MA from our partnership with the highly respected University of East Anglia. But I was shocked to discover that not much else had changed in how young people are attracted and trained for a life in our industry. I now realise why, throughout my career, I have found it so hard to recruit talent that genuinely reflects the significant and culturally rich mix of social and racial identities that make up this beautiful island of ours. They do not go to our drama schools in anywhere near representative numbers.

We need to fish in a wider pond for the talent we need to end the complacency that expects the excluded to somehow find a way to our door

We who are in the business of attracting talented young people into the industry must look to ourselves and recognise the part we must play in improving matters. The Creative Industries Council advises that the creative industries sector generated £71.4bn gross value added to the UK in 2012. Are we really to believe that only certain sections of society in the UK are interested in joining in?

As training institutions for our industry we need to fish in a wider pond for the talent we need, to end the complacency that expects the excluded to somehow find a way to our door. In parallel, we need to enhance our students’ training experience so that they are able to cope with the challenges ahead. In my AGM lecture at the Royal Society for the Arts, I promoted the view that artists and arts professionals are a significant and untapped resource that need to play a wider role in society if they want their contribution valued and wide public support for arts subsidy maintained. As conservatoire training institutions we need to take action to ensure that every student understands this because it is what our industry needs.

How are we to do this? There are many plans afoot. At Mountview we are working locally and nationally to make a step-change in recruitment. Locally we are working in partnership with Tottenham Hotspur football club to mirror its academy system and support young talent in Haringey (our home borough) and wider London. Nationally, we want to recruit the best from around the country and we are setting up a network of theatres and educational institutions to help us identify those young people with a real aptitude and talent who might not perceive vocational training as being an option for them. We are creating a one-year foundation course to bridge the gap into higher education and vocational training. We are also looking for a new home where we can offer a community facility, alongside our training programmes, to make sure that our students do not live in an ivory castle but learn and grow in a shared environment, where they see local engagement as part of their lives.

The biggest challenge though is access to money to support those talented, but excluded, young people to train. Drama UK (the body that represents drama training institutions) pledges with our sector skills councils to provide us with the data we need to articulate the challenge. Together they must get government attention and a commitment to making grant aid provision for drama training straightforward. It is a hopeless, confusing mess overseen by two different government departments: Business Innovation and Skills and the Department for Education. Our students are only entitled to a maximum of £6,000 of government grant aid. The one remaining funding lifeline for those disadvantaged and determined enough to find it may be about to be cut from 2016. The loss of the Dance and Drama Awards grant aid to poorer students would be an absolute disaster. Create UK, the Creative Industries Council’s strategy and the Creative Industries Federation are very welcome moves that can help. The BBC is stepping up to the challenge and apprenticeship schemes at Warner Brothers, Sky, Channel 4, the RSC and many others can act as recruitment channels.

We all know that far too many people are excluded from the opportunity to work in the arts. The barriers are social, financial and institutional. For this to change there needs to be committed and focused intervention to guarantee fairness for all talented young people and a widening of access and inclusion. For our industry to continue to grow and remain relevant to British people this is an imperative and we cannot afford to fail.

Vikki Heywood is Chair of the Royal Society for the Arts and Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts.
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