Ms Teresa McGrane:

Training is being discussed in various guises. I am here as Screen Training Ireland but I work in the Irish Film Board and am deputy chief executive officer. A number of years ago when FÁS was being dissolved and being folded into the ETBs, with SOLAS being the policy body, FÁS came to us and asked whether we would take over the training element of the unit that had been sitting within FÁS. We were very happy to do that. That is a very small unit. This is a major piece of work that needs to be done and this is a small unit of three people. We structure our training across production and technical, which is the subject of what we are talking about today, business and enterprise and creativity and creative collaboration.

What we recognised when we got into Screen Training Ireland is that we really needed to move the agenda forward. We started the process of commissioning a report to get a national conversation on where skills were going in the screen sector.

Screen Training Ireland also covers live action, film and TV drama, animation, games, visual effects, new emerging technologies in VR and it covers television broadcasts, so it is a very wide remit. It is a far wider remit than the funding of the Film Board of Ireland.

We finished the report last year and we published it in September. I would say it took us longer to complete and when one has co-agencies it takes a while when they are on different slip streams. Let me bring the members through a number of the ideas we are developing, which will be an active part of the work plan for the Irish Film Board in 2018.

In the booklet we published, we set out all the training we have been doing in 2017. In 2017, the Irish Film Board and the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland, BAI, published the AV skills strategy report. In 2018, Screen Training Ireland, STI will undertake a review of the report and seek to implement the major recommendations and these will include an advisory board for Screen Training Ireland, the appointment of a training manager, the engagement with the sector on the recommendations, a skills gap audit across live action, animation and television production sectors and consideration of accreditation models.

In 2017 major advances were made in developing apprenticeships, however we recognise the scale of the work that still needs to be done in developing more work-based learning opportunities. Many challenges still exist. Diversity, inclusion, paths for new entrants and the ongoing issue of bridging the gap between third level and industry. We also recognise that we need more hard data in terms of measuring the workforce. Therefore in 2018, we will roll out an extensive careers portal in live action, animation and the effects in television production which will map careers in these areas. We will launch that portal imminently. We need to establish an industry education forum, carry out detailed research on the scale and the breakdown of the workforce; develop more traineeships and partnerships with SOLAS, the local education and training boards and third level; develop a trainee tool kit; and work closely with industry on partnership initiatives, especially around animation and increase mentoring, especially for female talent.