At the kratesitwards (as some are calling them) on Saturday, Coun Neville Summerfield bigged up some of the support initiatives for creative types in Birmingham:
- Creative Birmingham – pulling together key public agencies investing in the creative industries
- Design Space – accommodates and finances new design agencies in the Jewellery Quarter
- SRB6 Creative Industries – offers a range of business support to new businesses in the north-west of the city
- Enterprise City – provides coaching and mentoring services to new and expanding businesses
- Business Support for Creative Industries Programme – £9m flagship initiative. Created 800 jobs, safeguarded 400 jobs, helped start 250 businesses and supported 1,200 businesses in total. Generated over £15m in new sales
As far as I can tell, SRB6 has ended, enrolment in Enterprise City is closed (the scheme ends in March 09) and I can’t find any info about Creative Birmingham at all.
D’log tried looking into the schemes mentioned when Coun Summerfield responded to the issue of support for the creative sector last month. He had problems finding any useful information too.
The thing is, maybe there are lots of helpful support schemes out there but how many eligible people/companies know about them and where’s the information being made available? I guess the place to go would be Creative Launchpad (currently residing online here) or Business Link but it’s a shame the info doesn’t seem to be collected together somewhere useful.
Actually, I’ve just found West Midlands Finance, which describes itself as “comprehensive, continually updated finance information for West Midlands SMEs”. Feel free to register and have a root about but the need to register has put me right off – what’s the need exactly? Humph.
Chris – just a FYI, it was before your time, but I sit on the Creative Birmingham Partnership Board (number 1 in your list), and when Pete and I thought up Created in Birmingham it was Paul Cantrill from the City Council who sits on that board who jumped in with the initial cash to kick the blog off.
Following that I pitched repeatedly for independent representation of creativity and culture and they helped fund the set up of Creative Republic. Amongst other things they’ve done includes recommending setting up Film Birmingham.
Speak to Kevin at Urban Communications for info? I haven’t made it to a board meeting for a few months either due to cancellation their end or busyness my end (sorry), but Helga is also on it and might be able to shed some light.
Chris – you’re right that SRB6 has ended. The first run of Handsworth Library’s “Urban Digital” media training programme used up the scrag end of the funding which was ring fenced for 06-07 financial year. They did very good things with the funding.