Design Skills Advisory Panel reports to Parliament

The Design Industry Skills Development Plan, the initiative set up by the Design Council in conjunction with Creative & Cultural Skills in April 2005, is to present its findings to a parliamentary group today.


The Design Industry Skills Development Plan, the initiative set up by the Design Council in conjunction with Creative & Cultural Skills in April 2005, is to present its findings to a parliamentary group today.


The report, called High Level Skills for Higher Value, will be published on-line next month. Barry Sheerman MP will introduce an Early Day Motion, to register the issue for debate in the House of Commons.


The DISDP (formerly Keep British Design Alive) will feed into the overarching Creative & Cultural Skills’ sector skills agreement, which will be presented to the Treasury in 2008 in a bid to secure funding. According to David Worthington, deputy chairman of the Design Skills Advisory Panel, the project is ‘not so much about the now but [about] a legacy, about the future of design’.


The report follows the controversial year-long consultation with the UK design industry on how best to respond to the threat of tougher international competition. Highlights will include a recommendation for a UK ‘design academy’, as well as a professional design framework, the latter replacing an earlier suggestion of a professional design accreditation scheme.


Design Council head of skills Lesley Morris says that, rather than contribute to further fragmentation of the design industry, the academy hopes to ‘pull together design practitioners, clients and design bodies across the industry to collaborate on establishing standards for design practice, methodology and skills requirements’.


The DISDP will also reveal its recommendations for secondary and further education.

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