Creative & Cultural Skills: Northern Ireland Creative Employment Programme

Overview

NI CEP provides wage incentives of up to £5,000 to creative and cultural businesses who recruit young people as paid interns and apprentices.

Young people aged 16-24 from all backgrounds, from graduates to those with few or no qualifications, will get the chance to access on-the-job-training and experience to build the skills that employers want while working in high-quality organisations.

Arts and cultural eligible sub-sectors

• The apprenticeships and internships must take place within the creative sector. This means that the primary activity of the applicant must be within one of the Arts Council Northern Ireland sub-sectors (music, dance, drama, literature, visual arts, craft, festivals, arts venues, community arts, galleries, museums, circus and carnival arts). If you are not sure whether your activities fall within one (or more) of these sub-sectors, please contact them.
• Although the apprenticeships and internships must take place within the creative sector, they may be for any opportunity within the sector, including support roles such as finance, administration, HR, catering etc.

Apprenticeships

• The apprentice needs to be aged 16-24, employed for a minimum of 21 hours per week and for at least two years.
• They offer up to £3500 towards the total wage costs for every new apprenticeship paid at the National Apprentice rate (£3.30 per hour from October 2015) which applies for apprentices under 19 or 19 or over and in the first year of their apprenticeship.
• They offer up to £5000 towards the total wage costs for every new apprenticeship paid at the National Minimum Wage (currently £6.50 per hour, increasing to £6.70 per hour in October 2015).
• All apprentices must be (at the time of making their application for an apprenticeship) unemployed.
• All apprenticeships must be advertised on the JobCentre Online NI website. This can be done through Employers Online NI.
• All apprenticeships must be at level 3.
• They will fund any apprenticeship pathway that is relevant to the arts and cultural workforce. These include (but not limited to) Live Events & Promotion, Music Business, Technical Theatre, Costume & Wardrobe, Cultural and Heritage Venue Operations, Community Arts, Design, Set Crafts, Creative and Digital Media, Enterprise, Accounting, Business Administration, Marketing, and Customer Service.
• An apprenticeship may be shared between more than one organisation. There must be one lead applicant.

Internships

• They offer up to £1,500 towards the total wage costs for every new internship. The intern needs to be aged 18-24, employed for a minimum of 26 weeks at 30 hours per week and paid at least the National Minimum Wage (currently £6.50 per hour, increasing to £6.70 per hour in October 2015).
• All interns must have (at the time of applying for the internship) a qualification of level 4 and above. We will encourage employers to fill all internship opportunities with a young person who is in receipt of unemployment related benefits. However, we acknowledge that many young people, particularly graduates, who are keen to work in the sector take on zero-hours contracts and/or part-time work outside of the sector in an effort to secure freelance or part-time work in the creative sector.
• This programme does not wish to exclude these individuals and is seeking to reach the widest demographic possible amongst young people aged 18-24. They will work with employers to recruit on this basis and specifically target unemployed young people and those who are likely to benefit the most.
• All internships must be advertised through JobCentre Online NI.

The Available Funding

• They will offer funding towards the wage costs for apprenticeships and internships. You may apply for funding for apprenticeships only, internships only, or both.
• Individual applicants must use the entire grant to contribute towards the wage costs of the apprentice or intern. It cannot be used for training costs.
• Employers may submit only one application per funding round, but may be named in further partnership applications from other lead employers.
• Employers may apply for funding for up to 3 positions, unless prior permission for more has been obtained from the Director of the Northern Ireland Creative Employment Programme.
• They will pay grants in advance of any spending, in two instalments.
• Employers will be required to enter into a grant agreement before they pay any funds.
• They will not fund any spend that is committed before entering into their grant agreement. This means you must not start jobs, including recruitment for these, until they have notified you of their funding decision.

Additional Funding

• All applications must demonstrate value for money by delivering maximum benefit to individuals for the costs incurred, and any match funding must be clearly identified in the application for funding. For the Department for Employment and Learning stipulations regarding apprenticeships
• Applicants will need to ensure that all match funding is eligible, and not considered as “double funding”. Other Arts Council of Northern Ireland funding is ineligible as match. If you are in doubt, please contact them.
• In most cases, they support use of their grants to match fund other bids for funds. Before making any other bid, please contact them to discuss your proposals.

Who Can Apply

The Applicant must be based in Northern Ireland.

The Applicant may be in the private or public sector (special rules apply) and may be a commercial or not-for-profit organisation. An organisation can submit its own application, or it can work in collaboration to submit partnership applications.

Within the Apprenticeships NI scheme, the Department for Employment and Learning (DEL) will not fund the training of an apprentice where an apprentice’s salary is paid for with public monies. This training money does not get paid to the employer, but is used to pay the training provider who will work with the employer to put their apprentice through the apprenticeship qualification. Therefore, if an arts organisation is in receipt of public money and wants to access NI CEP funding for an apprenticeship position, they must clearly demonstrate that the revenue used to employ the apprentice does not come from public funding. Most organisations have multiple income streams, such as ticket sales, client work, sponsorship or other non-public funds. The applicant must provide, as part of their application, a statement which proves it can and will use these additional income streams to pay for the apprentice’s salary, rather than use public funds. These rules do not apply for internships.

They will need to check your organisation’s constitution. If your legal status is different to the following, please contact them:

• Limited company (Ltd / plc)
• Community Interest Company (CIC)
• Trust registered with the Charity Commission
• Unincorporated Association registered with the Charity Commission
• Charitable Incorporated Organisation
• Limited Liability Partnership (LLP)
• Industrial and Provident Society or Community Benefit Society registered with the Financial Services Authority
• Royal Charter Company
• Statutory Body (including local authorities)
• Sole trader

Any one organisation may make subsequent applications, once notified of the outcome of any previously submitted applications. Organisations may apply to employ a maximum of three apprentices and paid internships over the course of the NI CEP programme; unless special circumstances have been agreed with written confirmation from the Director of the NI CEP.

Applicants do not need to have experience of working with similar schemes, but any involvement with wage subsidy schemes or other relevant experience should be included in the application.

Sole Traders or SMEs lacking experience or HR functions to support apprenticeships are invited to contact them