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Government departments are favouring key recommendations made in the Livingstone-Hope Skills Review, the paper’s co-author has said.
Ian Livingstone, who helped write and publicly backed the NESTA review, has told Develop that the Treasury will publish a response to the paper in a matter of months.
“We’ve had a call from the Treasury to talk through measures and recommendations that have been set out in the budget around the digital and creative industries. They include a promised response to our report, which is excellent news,” Livingstone said.
He added that the Department for Education minister John Hayes would meet with him today to discuss specific issues.
“We are still keen to talk with [Education secretary] Michael Gove but have not been able to so far,” he added.
The Skills Review makes twenty recommendations that are hoped can dramatically improve academia’s relationship with the games industry. Independent data shows that fewer graduates who want game dev jobs have the “necessary skills” in computer science, maths and physics.
Eidos life-president Livingstone explained that Skills Review progress was also made in last week’s Budget.
The Budget paper promised to “improve the stock of skills in the digital and creative industries”.
Another Treasury measure outlined is to “focus STEMNET’s future recruitment of STEM Ambassadors on the digital and creative industries and other priority growth sectors.”
The Treasury also said it will “publish information for businesses on how they can support an employee undertaking university study to meet their high level skill needs”.
One of the most transformative recommendations – to introduce computer science into the National Curriculum – has not yet been met with a response.
