Government's creative input welcomed

by Media Week, Media Week 26-Feb-08

Advertisers have welcomed government proposals to support the sector, particularly steps to protect their intellectual property and improve financial support for creative businesses.

On Friday, the Government published a strategic document on the creative
industries, Creative Britain: New Talents for the New Economy. The
document, which follows up on a report last June by The Work Foundation,

outlines 26 government-backed initiatives to support the creative

industry.

Among its plans, the Government intends to offer 5,000 apprenticeships
by 2012 to help people from all backgrounds enter the creative
industries. In addition, it will establish a network of regional
creative hubs to improve creative businesses' access to finance. The
Government will also make it easier for creative businesses to apply for
a public and private-funded investment fund, known as enterprise capital
funds.

Hamish Pringle, director-general of the Institute of Practitioners in
Advertising, said: "It's an impressive piece of work, visionary and high
in ambition. The goals are specific and practical. Too often you hear a
lot of rhetoric and not much reality."

The IPA welcomed the Government's moves to implement intellectual
property legislation, requiring internet service providers and rights
holders to cooperate in tackling illegal file-sharing by April 2009.

But proposals made no mention of an exemption for the creative
industries from what the IPA sees as the potentially damaging transfer
of undertakings protection of employment (TUPE) regulations.