The BFI announces £9.6m of National Lottery funding over three years to support skills development and training across the UK. As the sector faces acute skills shortages, National Lottery funding responds directly to recommendations in the BFI Skills Review and two leading priorities revealed through extensive public and industry consultation: to make the sector more accessible and representative; and build a skilled workforce across the UK.
The funding focusses on establishing localised support for skills development and training, with a clear aim to create new opportunities for people from underrepresented backgrounds to pursue careers in the sector. It will complement the work of the industry-led response to the BFI Skills Review, through the recently announced Skills Task Force, as well as industry interventions, including from organisations such as ScreenSkills, which are crucial to addressing the skills shortage.
Harriet Finney, Deputy CEO of the BFI, said, “We seek to effect positive change across the screen sector through our National Lottery funding, but also by evidence-led policy – such as the BFI Skills Review – and working closely with industry and government. Evidence gathered and analysis conducted through the Review concluded that radical change is needed to address current skills shortages and to retain and train those already working in the sector. It identified the need for industry investment, and we welcome the industry’s response in committing to the Skills Task Force. However, we believe BFI National Lottery good cause funding also has a vital role to play, particularly in redressing inequality of access to training, work place opportunities, and career-long support.”
BFI Skills Clusters will enable lead organisations to work collaboratively with local industry, education and training providers, and support the shared ambitions of UK-wide organisations such as ScreenSkills, to develop clearer pathways to long-term employment in film and TV production. Through the Skills Clusters, locally-based partners will identify skills shortages and gaps and coordinate skills and training opportunities for below-the-line production crew in their area. Skills Clusters aim to build local skills bases by helping people across the UK, especially those from underrepresented backgrounds, find viable routes into the screen industry and effective career development support.
Six BFI Skills Clusters have been awarded a total of £8.1m over three years and will be led by organisations covering the following areas:
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Screen Yorkshire (North of England): £2.3m
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Film London (London, Hertfordshire, Surrey, and Buckinghamshire): £2.2m
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Screen Scotland (Scotland): £1.1m
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Create Central (West Midlands): £1m
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Northern Ireland Screen (Northern Ireland): £0.9m
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Resource Productions (Berkshire): £0.6m
Partnership working, and leveraging additional local funding and support, will maximise the impact of National Lottery funding. Organisations already committed to support BFI Skills Clusters include the National Film & Television School, working closely with Film London; the Liverpool Film Office, North East Screen, and Screen Manchester partnering with Screen Yorkshire; and the University of Reading and Shinfield Studios working with Resource Productions. Across the three years, the programme expects to pull over £6m direct match funding into skills and training activity across the UK, including from commercial partnerships and local public funding.
BFI Skills Clusters investment aims to strike a balance between building on existing production infrastructure to provide new entrant and development opportunities in the most established areas of activity, while also helping to grow local crew bases in more emergent areas. In terms of UK-wide spread, approximately two-thirds of funding has been allocated across the North of England, Scotland, the West Midlands and Northern Ireland. The remaining third is allocated in London and the South East where the majority of production activity is currently based; over the last five years, 58% of film productions have used locations in London and the South East, and these films accounted for 70% of the film production spend in the UK.1
The BFI expects to make further announcements on Skills Clusters funding in Wales, in keeping with the fund’s stated ambition to establish at least one cluster in each nation of the UK. The BFI also expects to fund further Skills Clusters in emerging production hubs in the UK over the course of its 10-year National Lottery strategy, running to 2033.
In addition to Skills Clusters, the BFI National Lottery Skills Fund aims to break down financial and geographical barriers that prevent people from undertaking vital training. From the £5.7m fund, £1.5m of BFI National Lottery funding has been delegated to ScreenSkills for a Skills Bursary Fund, providing direct financial support to help new entrants and those already working ‘behind the camera’ in the screen industry to access new training, skills and professional development opportunities. This will build on work previously delivered by ScreenSkills, and complement bursary support from the industry Skills Councils, to ensure an even greater diversity of talent is supported to progress into and through a career in screen. Further skills funding will be awarded in due course.
To oversee the BFI’s National Lottery supported skills activity, Sara Whybrew has been appointed as Head of National Lottery Skills Programmes. The new role will be focused on ensuring that skills and training activity supported through BFI National Lottery funding is joined-up and aligned with industry needs. Whybrew joins the BFI from ScreenSkills, where she worked as Apprenticeships and Policy Consultant and prior to that was Director of Policy and Development at Creative & Cultural Skills. Both roles saw her lead the development and delivery of national sector skills initiatives that have aided new and diverse talent to progress into creative careers. Whybrew previously worked at Arts Council England, where she co-created the £15 million Creative Employment Programme, which she went on to deliver, and later created and led the delivery of the award-winning Discover Creative Careers Week.
Sara Whybrew, Head of National Lottery Skills Programmes, said, “I am delighted to be joining the BFI as the new Head of National Lottery Skills Programmes; there is no better time to be supporting the progression of diverse talent into and through this world-leading sector. Screen culture should be accessible to all, which means screen workplaces must be too. I look forward to working in collaboration with myriad partners and stakeholders to make this is a reality.”
In addition to the BFI’s National Lottery funding, the recently announced industry-led Skills Task Force for the UK’s screen sectors is addressing the critical skilled labour shortages within the UK’s production screen sectors. Convened by the BFI in response to recommendations in the BFI Skills Review, the Task Force is chaired by Creative Executive Georgia Brown and will develop a plan to address urgent skills shortages in physical production and build on work by ScreenSkills.
The BFI National Lottery Strategy 2023-2033 is informed by an extensive consultation with public and industry. Almost all (97%) respondents considered “Making the screen sector more representative, inclusive and accessible” and “Building a skilled workforce across the UK in all areas of the screen sector” to be very or somewhat important issues. Therefore, one of the key objectives of the strategy is to support a skilled and representative workforce and under this objective the BFI hopes to achieve the following outcomes through its funding:
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Equitable and more visible routes into the sector for people of all ages.
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People from under-represented groups across the UK can access the support they need to develop their careers and skills.
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Workforce retention is improved by building inclusive, flexible and supportive workplaces.
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Vital skills for the sector that cannot be delivered by the commercial market are developed.
Previously announced, the BFI awarded £14 million National Lottery funding to two UK-wide partners to deliver three targeted education work streams for 5-18 year-olds: BFI National Lottery Teaching with Film, BFI National Lottery Young Creatives and BFI National Lottery Careers and Progression. Into Film, receiving £12.4m over three years, will work across all three programmes, and National Saturday Club will receive £1.5m for the same period to collaborate with Into Film to deliver Young Creatives. A further £5.5m is allocated for BFI Film Academy, details of which are to be announced shortly.
More information
BFI Skills Review
The BFI Skills Review – which the BFI undertook at the request of the DCMS in the face of increasing pressure on the skills in industry – examined the needs for training and skills development across the production sector for scripted film and high-end television. The Review provided five key recommendations to create and maintain the workforce required:
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an industry-led and localised approach to investment in training;
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a more formalised approach to hiring, workplace management and professional development;
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stronger bridges into industry from education and other sectors;
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more comprehensive careers information, profiles and pathways; and
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better data to support policy and action.
This work informed the design of the BFI National Lottery strategy.
Skills Task Force
In response to the BFI Skills Review recommendations, an industry-led Skills Task Force is currently leading on the development of a plan to address urgent skills shortages in physical production.
Creative executive Georgia Brown will chair the Skills Task Force, the industry-led group which is addressing the critical skilled labour shortages within the UK’s production screen sectors. The Task Force will comprise senior representatives from all the major broadcasters, studios and streamers, as well as key organisations including ScreenSkills, PACT and national screen agencies, and has been convened by the BFI. The Task Force is committed to working together to design a comprehensive and clear industry response to this review, building on ongoing work by ScreenSkills, in order to address the skills shortages, gaps and related challenges over the next five years.
Sara Whybrew’s biography
Sara is passionate about supporting fair and equal entry to work across the cultural industries regardless of one’s background, previous educational achievement, or personal circumstance.
Having previously held senior roles at ScreenSkills and Creative & Cultural Skills, she has led the development and delivery of national sector skills initiatives that have aided new and diverse talent to progress into creative careers. She has also worked with hundreds of employers to help them learn about and adopt fair access and inclusive recruitment practices. During her time at Arts Council England, Sara co-created the £15 million Creative Employment Programme, which she subsequently went on to deliver, supporting thousands of unemployed young people into work across the arts, and later created and led the delivery of the award-winning Discover Creative Careers Week.
Sara originally trained at art school, later training as a post-16 teacher and has worked in both Further and Higher Education. An avid supporter of art and culture, Sara is currently a Trustee of the Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds, the only Theatre in the country to double as a National Trust site.
BFI 10-year National Lottery Strategy
The 10-year BFI National Lottery Strategy 2023-2033 has been developed over a 13-month period benefitting from UK-wide public and sector consultation and online events hosted from 14 cities across the UK. It has also been informed by the evaluation of funds from BFI2022 and targeted BFI research including the recently published Skills Review and the Economic Review of UK Independent Film.
BFI National Lottery Funding Plan 2023-2026
The first three-year BFI National Lottery Funding Plan runs from 2023-2026 and sets out the funds and programmes that the BFI will operate to deliver against the strategy. This includes the funding awards detailed in this announcement. Subsequent future funding plans will be published to cover the 10-year period.
The BFI receives 2.7% of available National Lottery funding which for the first BFI National Lottery Funding Plan, 2023-2026, will amount to approximately £45 million a year, or £135 million over the first three years. The terms for how the BFI awards National Lottery ‘good cause’ funding to deliver benefit to the UK public are set out in policy directions established by the Department for Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) and enshrined in legislation.
National Lottery funding has played a transformative role in the UK’s screen sectors. It has nurtured filmmakers and creative risk-takers, helped develop the UK’s world-class workforce, inspired children and young people, and connected audiences to a more diverse screen culture – all in ways that the commercial market alone cannot deliver.
Over the next 10 years, the BFI wants to build on this legacy, expand on the opportunities for growth and explore new avenues for audience participation and creativity in the screen sector. Working in partnership was highlighted throughout the consultation phase as essential for delivering on UK wide growth and sustainability objectives over the next 10 years. Through collaboration, the BFI will ensure all National Lottery funded activity draws on the wide-ranging knowledge and experience of people in every part of the country and responds to the needs of the regions and devolved nations of the UK.
From 2023-2026, the first funding plan will provide support for a range of programmes:
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£54 million for filmmakers to enable the creation of original screen work from first-time creators to world-class professionals through the BFI National Lottery Filmmaking Fund; and also supporting talent development through BFI NETWORK with national and regional partnerships to improve routes into the industry for new and emerging filmmaking talent. This strand of funding will also support a new BFI National Lottery Creative Challenge Fund to encourage risk-taking creative storytelling.
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£34.2 million across education and skills includes funding for a BFI Teaching with Film programme enabling teachers to use film and moving image in the classroom and a careers and progression programme to deliver quality screen sector careers and guidance on entering the industry for children and young people. A BFI Young Creatives filmmaking programme for 11-16 year-olds will be provided in community venues as well as education spaces. Funding for the BFI Film Academy will ensure that young people aged 16-25 years have the chance to build their knowledge and understanding of the industry, develop their skills, and enable many to gain roles in the industry, ultimately helping to support the UK workforce talent pipeline.
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£27.6 million for audience development includes a BFI National Lottery Audience Project Fund to support the work of distributors and exhibitors working across independent film and XR; funding for the BFI Film Audience Network across the nations and regions to boost public and community access to screen culture; and a new BFI National Lottery Open Cinemas initiative aiming to offer free screenings in independent cinemas.
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£10 million for screen heritage work including a BFI National Lottery Screen Heritage Fund to support significant screen heritage collections in making screen heritage available to the public, developing specialised moving image preservation and restoration skills and better representing the UK’s diverse communities. Funding of £2.1 million covers the final year of Heritage 2022 programme due to conclude in December 2023 due to delays induced by the pandemic.
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£7.3 million across innovation and industry services includes a BFI National Lottery Places Fund to help areas outside of London develop strategies for supporting their local screen sectors and a new BFI National Lottery Innovation Challenge Fund to help not-for-profit organisations tackle some of the sector’s biggest challenges facing the sector today through the testing, development and delivery of new solutions. Funding for BFI Production Support Services will support international and domestic production across the regions of England, complementing work in the nations. This will help all parts of the UK feel the benefits of production in terms of jobs and growth. BFI National Lottery Sustainable Screen will help National Lottery recipients, as well as the wider sector to measure and minimise negative environmental impact, and work towards creating positive environmental outcomes. The BFI National Lottery Research & Statistics Fund will continue to provide insight and evidence supporting screen culture and sector development and growth.
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£3.2 million for international activity includes a BFI National Lottery International Connections Fund to support UK screen professionals developing cultural and commercial collaborations by participating in international co-production forums and festivals. The UK Focus Fund will support activity that will increase the visibility of UK talent and content, and connect UK content creators with international counterparts. It will also support the UK’s international market initiative, We Are UK Film which promotes the UK screen sector, across film, video games, XR, animation and documentary, to industry professionals around the world. This international funding complements UK Global Screen Fund (UKGSF) – administered by the BFI and funded directly by the DCMS with £21 million over three years – designed to boost international business development, production and distribution opportunities for the UK’s independent screen sector.
About the BFI
We are a cultural charity, a National Lottery distributor, and the UK’s lead organisation for film and the moving image.
Our mission is:
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To support creativity and actively seek out the next generation of UK storytellers
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To grow and care for the BFI National Archive, the world’s largest film and television archive
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To offer the widest range of UK and international moving image culture through our programmes and festivals - delivered online and in venue
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To use our knowledge to educate and deepen public appreciation and understanding
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To work with Government and industry to ensure the continued growth of the UK’s screen industries
Founded in 1933, the BFI is a registered charity governed by Royal Charter. The BFI Board of Governors is chaired by Tim Richards.