DCMS provides funding boost for creative businesses

Creative businesses with the potential to grow are to benefit from a new £17.5m funding pot to help expand their operations, attract additional investment and create jobs.

Companies in six English regions will receive support from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) through the Create Growth Programme to "help get themselves investment ready". 

Each of the six regions – Greater Manchester; the West of England, Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly; Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire; Leicestershire, Derbyshire and Lincolnshire; Kent, Essex and East and West Sussex; and the North East of England – have been awarded £1.275m in grant funding to develop a targeted programme of business support. 

Meanwhile, a £950,000 careers programme for the sector has launched in England, targeted in 53 priority areas across the country including Barking and Dagenham, Wolverhampton, Rotherham, Slough and Swindon.

The programme will provide specialist careers guidance for 11 to 18-year-olds and help pay for industry-led digital and in-person events, lesson plans, a dedicated careers website with careers information and resources, and training for careers advisors.

It is hoped the support will help ensure more young people from a diverse range of backgrounds can take advantage of career opportunities in the creative sectors.

Creative Industries Minister Julia Lopez said: "From product design and video games to music and film, the creative industries are a stellar UK success story.

"Today’s plans will help get more creative businesses off the ground so they can spread jobs and wealth and help more people, including those from underrepresented backgrounds, break into these world-class sectors."