Creative & Cultural Skills set up its National Skills Academy (NSA) in April 2009 with support from the Learning and Skills Council. The NSA is a membership organisation with a national network of 20 Founder Further Education Colleges and over 230 theatre and live music industry members across the nine regions of England, working in partnership to improve skills and strengthen the live music and technical theatre sector. It is one of 15 National Skills Academies working across the economy. Creative & Cultural Skills is looking at how to develop similar activity in Scotland and Wales.
There is currently a mis-match between the investment in performing courses and actual jobs available in the industry which are in the technical, backstage, front of house and administration roles. Creative & Cultural Skills is committed to providing industry-endorsed careers advice and guidance, creating non-graduate entry routes and professional development for workers in the sector.
Over time our Academy initiatives across the UK countries will extend to all sectors represented by Creative & Cultural Skills (craft, cultural heritage, design, literature and visual arts as well as theatre and music).
In England the NSA has been awarded funding to build a new training centre for live music and theatre in Purfleet in the Thames Gateway as part of the Royal Opera House Production Park. The centre will open in the Spring of 2012.