Improving access for all in TV

For more than a decade, the High-end TV Skills Fund has been working hand-in-hand with industry to support and develop the TV workforce. Using contributions from qualifying productions, the Fund directs investment where it is most needed, via training and career development opportunities across the UK.

These decisions are shaped by the senior HETV industry professionals who make up the Fund’s Skills Council and Working Groups, and identify areas of most need. Paramount among these considerations is how to make the industry as accessible as possible to everyone, and provide pathways to those looking to join the industry or progress.

Improving access is a principle that remains vital in improving the equality of the sector and one central to the Fund’s workforce support. At this year’s Edinburgh TV Festival, the Fund is hosting a panel on social mobility, inviting guests to discuss the challenges to entry and progression and how we can overcome them..

Kaye Elliott, director of the HETV Skills Fund at ScreenSkills, says: “The festival enables us to discuss the opportunities and challenges faced by the industry. It thrives on a diverse workforce and that messaging has been at the heart of ScreenSkills and the HETV Fund’s work, and rooted in the Fund’s training programmes and workforce support since its launch in 2013.”

Joining Elliott on the panel is Marcia Williams, director of equity & inclusion, Channel 4, Josie Dobrin OBE, co-founder and executive chair, Creative Access, and Michaela McCaffrey, a member of the latest cohort of the Fund’s Leaders of Tomorrow initiative. The three-year inclusion programme provides comprehensive and tailored support to those identifi ed by senior colleagues as ready to step up to a more senior role, and is focused on widening the make-up of our future leaders.

On joining the programme, McCaffrey spoke of it being a vehicle to provide viable pathways to those from all backgrounds. “I think my ultimate goal is to become a leader who can open doors for people who would otherwise not have an opportunity. I couldn’t always see a way into this industry so it’s really important for me as I progress to be a role model for people who feel like that as well.”

“We need to broaden the range of our offering and access. This includes increasing the shapes and shades of the people, places and things we  include at all levels”
Barrington Paul Robinson

Also on the panel is producer Barrington Paul Robinson, who took part in the Fund’s co-producer programme on The Responder (BBC) and has since worked on A Town Called Malice (Sky) – both contributors to the Fund.

He says: “We need to broaden the range of our offering and access. This includes increasing the shapes and shades of the people, places and things we include at all levels, opening doors and providing pathways for those from all backgrounds and ensuring they have a route to succeed in our industry.”

The Fund’s pre-new entrant programme, First Break, was developed to do just that. It works with indies, broadcasters, streamers and local partners across the UK to de-mystify entry into the TV industry for those who might otherwise think it isn’t a viable career option.

Tony Schumacher, writer of Bafta-nominated drama The Responder (pictured top), is another whose entry into the industry received a boost through the Fund when he was accepted onto the HETV Skills Fund’s Writers Champion Programme, delivered in partnership with Dancing Ledge.

He says: “The programme came totally out the blue for me. I had written a spec script and sent it to a production company in Liverpool, and one day Jimmy McGovern saw the script, read it, gave me a ring and said he’d been approached by the HETV Skills Fund and explained there was money available that could give me an opportunity to be secure for a couple of months so I could concentrate on writing. And that was the start of my journey. The Fund gave me access to people like Jimmy McGovern. I was driving a taxi and now I’m talking to Hollywood execs!”