The High-end TV Skills Fund is increasing the cap on industry contributions effective from April 1 2024. The increases were voted on and approved by the HETV Skills Council, which includes Pact and forms part of the Fund's annual process to review Skills Fund contributions.
“For the past 10 years, the Fund has invested over £40 million back into training and development determined by the needs of the HETV sector itself,” commented Barry Ryan, Chair, HETV Skills Council. “These modest increases to the HETV Skills Fund cap will enable the Fund to remain broadly in line with inflation and continue to develop and deliver training right across the UK to support the careers of people working in high-end television. At a time when workers are feeling vulnerable it is essential to keep supporting them and the producers who contribute to the Fund."
This year’s increases to the cap balances the industry's priorities of acknowledging the financial challenges a lot of productions are experiencing with a continued drive to deliver collective skills investment to continue to build and support its UK wide freelance workforce.
From April 1 2024, the cap for HETV productions with a budget of less than £5 million per broadcast hour will increase from £73,300 to £76,200 - an increase of CPI only. For productions which have budgets above £5 million per broadcast hour, the cap will increase from £110,500 to £119,800, an increase of CPI plus an additional £5k. The lower cap uplift maintains an increase at the same level as inflation; with the higher cap increase reflecting the significant increase to larger production budgets in comparison to those reaching the lower cap. For productions that have already budgeted at the 2023/2024 cap levels, these will honoured until May 2024.
In 2024/2025, the HETV Skills Fund will continue to deliver value for money to the industry by the continued provision of skills support that offers ‘cash back’ to productions accessing HETV programmes as well as continue to design and deliver UK-wide training and development programmes for people at every stage of their career. Programmes in 2024/2025 will include recruiting a fourth cohort of Leaders of Tomorrow, the Fund’s three-year inclusion programme for mid-level professionals; Make A Move, a step-up programme offering on-the-job training into more senior production roles; and the access coordinator programme, to support people with access, adjustment or inclusion requirements on productions.
In 2023, the HETV Skills Fund celebrated a decade of supporting the industry. Since launch in 2013 over £40 million has been invested in workforce development with contributions from more than 1,200 productions. This investment has enabled thousands of freelancers across the UK to start a career or step up into more senior careers in screen in HETV.
In return for their contribution, production can benefit from training and placement opportunities offered by the HETV Skills Fund, and are also eligible to receive up to 60% of the value of their contribution back in direct skills support on each production.