Equal opportunities

While Benedict Cumberbatch’s choice of words got him into some hot water earlier this year for his comments on the importance of diversity in the film and TV industry, the subject remains as valid today as it ever was. A Creative Skillset employment survey in 2013 showed that the proportion of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) people employed in the UK’s creative industries – including film, advertising, radio, gaming and TV – had fallen from 7.4% in 2006 to 5.4% in 2012. Shocking when you consider that in real life, 14.5% of the UK’s population are from BAME backgrounds.

The picture in Bristol is little different. The creative sector here employs almost 16,000 people, but white, middle-class graduates famously form the bulk of the workforce. “There isn’t enough diversity in the industry,” says Fiona Francombe, Manager of the Bottle Yard. It’s is a problem both on and off camera, and not just in terms of race, but also background, ethnicity, sexuality, gender, age, religion and disability.

In October last year, Represent launched, an organisation with a mission to improve equality and inclusion in the Bristol’s creative sector. “Diversity is an often discussed issue in the creative world, however, the challenge is to actually make some tangible changes,” says founder Joanna Randall. “We’re putting in place initiatives which benefit the city’s creative industries while creating opportunities for people who may not have previously considered careers in the creative sector.”

It’s not just a sense of justice that drives efforts: “There are commercial and ethical benefits to diversity,” says Joanna. “Output is enriched, and content that is more representative of society will appeal to more people.”

As one of Bristol’s biggest creative employers, the BBC has an active recruitment programme designed to attract talent from all backgrounds. Though director-general Tony Hall rejected proposals of BAME quotas, the organisation announced a new £2.1m diversity development fund last year. Nationally, it is one of the more representative employers, claiming a 12% BAME make-up, with particular success at regional level.

“The BBC has set out far reaching plans that we believe will make a real difference to diversity on and off air,” said a spokesperson. “We are clear that the BBC must ensure that every licence fee payer can hear or see something of their world in the BBC. The more diverse our workforce and output, the better able we are to respond to and reflect our audiences in all their diversity.”

So how do you do create a more representative workforce, and fairly?

“The greatest barriers are not knowing people and not being able to afford unpaid work experience,” says Jo Sutherland, BBC Outreach and Diversity Producer. The BBC counters these with interventions including apprenticeships and ‘Talent Ticket’, a scheme that runs creative workshops, work experience placements in the city’s low-achieving, diverse schools hoping to inspire careers in broadcasting. Work experience placements are strictly limited to four weeks with anything over considered a short-term, paid contract. 

“Unpaid internships should be banned,” says Joanna emphatically. “It’s a difficult sector to break into and unpaid work excludes people without contacts and support.”

However for many of Bristol’s small-scale film and TV businesses, investment in diversity programmes is simply beyond their budgets, which is why industry-level action is vital: “Collective effort will have more impact,” says Joanna.

At the root, she concludes, lies social mobility: “if social mobility can be improved, diversity will improve”.