Creative Britain: New Talents for the New Economy - The Digested Read

It's a list. To be precise this is version 1.0 of the list as this is a dynamic strategy that will change as the Creative Industries change. When we started all this you probably didn't think we'd end up with just a list did you? Remember all that consultation? Anyway, the 26 commitments we've come up with are a mix of new things, filler, things you already knew about or things that won't happen for ages.

Better than listing the commitments, let's look at some themes:

1. Kids are great and way more talented than grown-ups.
   But they don't get enough culture and are a bit fat. We're giving them an extra five hours of culture that will allow them to go the the theatre, do some creative writing or make films (although actually watching films won't be allowed). If you think your region can run a pilot for this then apply here. There's also a shed load of academies and centres of excellence on their way too to keep that production line of Brit talent moving.
   


2. The right jobs for the white people
   How come, when there are two million jobs in the Creative Industries, do we always hear about too many people chasing too few jobs. And let's face it, if you want to work in the Creative Industries it's who you know, not what you know but if all you know are other white people then you've got a problem. We're putting a stop to this by creating clearer career pathways and 5,000 creative apprenticeships a year. We'll be directing more people to the diverse range of glamorous behind the scenes jobs in the Creative Industries such as, erm, administration, fixing computers and painting and decorating.
   


3. Money for Nothing
   Every other sector gets its nose stuck into research and development producing world-beating new products and spending plenty of government cash along the way. Now it's the turn of the Creative Industries: £10m for R&D, £3m for Creative Innovators, a Knowledge Transfer Network, cash from the AHRC and then further research into whether it's all worth it. If you can't innovate after all that there's no hope for you.


4. Money for Something
   Investment is everything. Companies should be growing and blossoming like sunflowers nurtured with a liberal dose of cash investments. The Arts Council should start to get its hands dirty here and we'll be making it act like a hard-nosed Dragon rather than a philanthropic old Uncle. We'll be installing some 'beacons' to point businesses to the right kind of advice and support (although only in the West Mids, South East, South West , North East & North West) and we'll set up task and finish groups (in the North West and South West) to examine if any of this creative economy stuff is actually making a difference.


5. Stop Stealing stuff
   Intellectual Property matters, we have to stop people stealing it. The record industry is losing lots of money and generally doesn't know what to do. We plan to make the Internet Service Providers responsible and if they don't behave we'll introduce legislation to force them to stop all this wanton sharing of music and films.
   


6. Cool Rule Britannia
   We really need to show the rest of the world that we do the creativity bit better than anyone else. That way we can charge more for it. We'll be staging a World conference on creative business at the same scale as Davos and the the Mayor of London can have all the support he wants for any other London-based creative festivals. We'll also support other regionally-based festivals and events, although right now we're struggling to think of any.

I'm sure you'll agree that although we've announced some regional initiatives here this strategy document is primarily about how important London is. We mention London on almost every page even though our diagram at the back indicates that the density of creative industries firms is just as great in other areas of the UK.

If you care enough to keep tabs on the growth of the creative industries and whether or not we get these many initiatives off the ground then keep an eye on the website. If you're only interested in the bottom line impact on the economy then you'll have to wait until Autumn 2010 for the 2008 Creative Industries statistical bulletin.

The digested read, digested: The time for talking is over, or just beginning, or both; who knows?

Creative Britain - Some West Midlands highlights

Creative Britain is the culmination of the government's lengthy consultation on the Creative Economy programme. For my West Midlands readers I thought it might be useful to summarise what's in it for us:

• Birmingham Repertory Theatre and Royal Shakespeare Company are named as two of the organisations committed to providing some of the planned 5,000 formal apprenticeships a year by 2013.
• Under 'commitment 5' ("We will encourage employers and skills providers to set up ground-breaking new innovative places of learning") the recently announced Eastside Arts Academy gets a mention as does Birmingham City University's newly acquired Skillset Media Academy status.
• There's mention of a 'Birmingham International Film Festival' (it must mean this) as something which will be better linked in to London's creative festivals and other key events around the country (Animex being the only other one explicitly mentioned)
• Digital Central gets name-checked (as do other initiatives in the South East and South West) as an useful example of a sub-regional innovation network ("these networks are particularly important at regional and sub-regional level in the fast moving world of new media")
• The West Midlands is one of five regions that will establish a 'regional beacon' for the Creative Industries. Their job will be:
  - raising awareness to ensure that the sector knows what is available and how to access it
  - forging links with specialised providers and mentors
  - developing and disseminating best practice in meeting the needs of the sector
  - assessing the effectiveness of support for the creative industries by collecting and analysing data
• The document has an emphasis on investment rather than support and with that there's specific acknowledgement of the good work done by the Advantage Creative Fund.

I plan to post I've now posted a digest of the whole document. On the whole there's not an awful lot in here that we didn't already know about. This gives some initiatives a bit of a government rubber stamp I guess.

Beyond the Creative Industries - The Digested Read

This is all about counting and about how for all these years we've been doing the counting the wrong way. All that stuff you've heard over the years about how the Creative Industries is the greatest thing slince sliced bread and will ultimately save us all has been based on poor quality counting. Now we plan to tell you the truth about the Creative Industries and you will be shocked and disturbed by what you hear. You ready? Here goes:

Our new, improved and all-round excellent counting has concluded that the original poorly counted figures were largely correct.


No, hang on it's a bit more complicated than that as we've also discovered what creatives earn. And for this one we really do have a bombshell:


In some sectors creatives earn less than the management and admin staff who support them but on the whole you'll earn more by being creative in the Creative Industries than you will working, for example, as the in-house deisgner for KPMG.


Let's tease out the salary thing a little, it's kind of interesting. We've invented a complex new way of counting called the 'Creative Trident Model' for which we've identified three different kinds of creative workers:

• Embedded - creatives working in non-creative industries
• Support - those who work in management, administration, legal or accountancy in the creative industries
• Specialists - the creatives themselves, but only those who work in a creative industries company.

We looked at census data from 1981 through to the Labour Force Survey of 2006. Our fab new counting model even allows us to compare the Creative Industries to the financial sector and to Australia where they have much better ways to count things than we do.

Of course all you really want to know is who earns the most money?

• Nearly every sector (except for music - you guys earn next to nothing) earn way more than the national average salary.
• If you're in Software, Computer Games and Electronic Publishing you earn the most (over 80% more than the average salary).
• A 'support' worker in Film, Television and Photography earns more than the creative specialist.
• On the whole specialists earn just a bit more than the staff who support them.
• Creative specialists within a creative company earn a decent amount more than the creatives in the non-creative industries.

It's worth knowing (and gloating about the fact) that on the whole the Creative Industries do turn out to be as substantial as every one says they are. Since 1981 the sector has doubled the amount of support staff but tripled the amount of creatives.


BUT: the rate of growth in the number of jobs has slowed to about 1% a year (whereas the rate for jobs in the ecnomy as a whole is about 1.2%). Worse still, salary growth has slowed to a level below that of other jobs. However, that's largely due to a downturn in the advertising industry dragging the rest down and if you work in Film, TV, Radio or Photograhy you're earnings have been going up 4.7% a year even if the amount of jobs has dropped by 1.5%.

By and large the data for counting the Creative Industries is a bit rubbish. Okay so the half-arsed guesswork that counts for government statistics wasn't far off the mark but really, we've been counting this sector for over 10 years now, a bit more accuracy would be welcomed. Here's a fab new fact that our fab new model found out:

There are more creative roles outside the creative industries than in them yet estimates of the size of the creative economy fail to take this into account.


So if we based our estimates of the Creative Industries on the amount employees earned rather than the Gross Value Added measure that's always been used then:

Instead of being 7.3% of the economy we'd be talking about the Creative Industries as having almost 10% of national earnings - not bad eh?


The digested read, digested: Creatives everywhere - it's time to stand up and be counted

Creative Economy Programme - almost here....

At long last it looks like we'll see something tangible come out of the Creative Economy Programme consultation. The DCMS CEP website announces that the strategy document launches this Friday 22nd February. For advance word on it take a look at this article in the Times.

It's worth noting that this process began with a meeting on 29th November 2005. That makes Friday's launch the culmination of an 815 day process. You could probably usefully fill the time between now and Friday by looking back over the results of that consultation:

• the summary of the working groups;
• the full reports from each of the working groups:

• Education and Skills; Competition and IP; Technology; Business Support and Access to Finance; Diversity; Infrastructure; Evidence and Analysis

• the online discussion that ensued (scroll down to comments);
• last summer's holding paper from Will Hutton;
• the proposed changes to how we count the Creative Industries;
• and of course the latest Creative Industries stats.

You're probably wondering if the new paper bears any relation to the conversation the government has had with the creative industrues over the last three years. We're wondering too and we'll be digesting the strategy document here when we get a chance. Can't wait.