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The economic importance of the creative industries 

What does the term 'creative industries' mean? How significant is the creative sector? What opportunities does the sector present?

In the past, consensus on defintions has not been easy to achieve. As a result the estimates of the size and importance of the creative sector vary.

This is straight from NESTA's website.  Please see the Page tab above marked 'Publications and Research'.

The worst-case scenario is unacceptable

The worst-case scenario is unacceptable. Instead Mirador aims to work with its present and future clients and partners to address the following:

• Innovation and creativity. The markets for culture are changing  and the challenge in the next ten years is to resist a culture of providing ‘more of the same’.

• New entrepreneurialism.  Local authorities and their partners will need to be much more entrepreneurial than has been the case in the past.

• Competition. Audiences, especially new audiences, can be very selective about where they spend their money.

• Investment in education and skills. Cultural providers and their staff will require access to lifelong training.

The worst-case scenario

The worst case scenarion presents major losses to the local cultural economies if cultural planning was to fail and local provision is not enhanced to meet the demands of new or expanding markets.  A worst-case scenario prevails where:

• arts and cultural producers, community groups, local authorities, arts funders and business sponsors fail to analyse and scrutinise their options for growth by promoting culture as a driver for the local economy 
• cultural planners are unable to attract skilled workforce or invest in their training 
• lack of strategic planning frustrates the development of future capacity to deliver cultural output 
• cultural programmers may be driven to procure new artistic work from other countries at the expense of alienating local producers 
• lack of investment in partnerships fails to leverage resources into the economy 
• lack of planning fails to identify co-dependencies, namely the delivery of secondary services such as catering  
• lack of development of culture as a cross-cutting agenda precludes new investment from builders and planners

Addressing our key programmes for cultural diversity

Mirador is interested in developing a series of productions to implement its own programmes for addressing cultural diversity in London. The main components of our projected programme for delivery are:

 ·         Social inclusion

·         Capacity building through partnerships

·         Modernisation of delivery mechanisms to undertake large scale work

·         Creating effective links with learning and skills development

·         Investing in more viable structures for delivery

·         Confirming the basis for monitoring and evaluation

·         Developing co-financing options 

The above aspirations are also connected to the process for the determination of a major events strategy for London from 2006 to 2012.

Cultural Diversity

There are several practical approaches and ‘theories’ relating to the promotion of cultural diversity. The notion of ‘cultural relativism’ (Note 1) suggests that different people have their own frameworks for looking at the world.  They try to explain what they see by resorting to a series of production values and judgements which can be very inspiring, especially for continually developing productions for a mix of audiences: schools, the residents of London and visitors, for example. Note 1: the source of the concept of cultural relativism is not known to the writer.  

Making London’s Creative Capacity to work

Cultural planners and providers, arts organisations, community groups and individuals working in this exciting area of  London’s economy have the creative capacity to deliver a wide range of marketable outputs and services, all of which can add value. However they must engage with delivery organisations and invest in audience development more than ever before in order to develop their capability to deliver.  What are the key actions that London must prioritise to facilitate joint development of culture during the next ten years? How can a case of strategic investment in culture be sustained?  Culture is a key driver for London’s economy but what is its present share of London’s gross domestic product (GDP)? What is the potential for incremental growth by the time the Olympics are held? What types of  legacy programmes can be achieved for the ten year period after the Big Event in 2012? A case for investing in a programme of long-term investment is clearly sustainable. However, it must be realised at the outset that no single organisation can deliver the desired results on its own. This is especially a key issue for local authorities – they have been supporting culture in London and have a variable record of achievement. But their role must change from being funding-led providers to strategic developers of partnerships.

A proposal for London Boroughs

The shock of winning the Olympics bid is greater thanthe shock we would have had of losing it. Mirador Culture Management.  Mirador was launched in December 2005 as a new force in supporting culturally diverse planning and development programmes for celebrating the Olympics. It brings together well-known themes and innovative new projects to enhance the quality of public sector ‘cultural offer’ and supporting the engagement of communities in reshaping the cultural landscape in the run up to 2012. Now is the time…..  Action to provide shared support services for Leisure and Culture Departments  Following the success of the London 2012 Olympics bid, local authorities will be looking at options for making culture the driver for local renewal, economic development and community-led empowerment.  We are interested in working with leisure and culture teams in addressing the following: ·Securing strategic funding for long-term development programmes and projects. How can your cultural provision be made attractive for funders and sponsors by developing regional projects based on inter-borough cooperation? 

·How can cultural diversity be come an integral part of your provision? Diversity and mainstreaming go hand in hand. We have designed and run leading edge Festivals. We now have six proposals for joint development. People from adjacent boroughs are customers – they are a part of regional markets. 

·Community engagement remains the key to success. How are you going to attract and retain community participation as a major driver for delivery? We have developed a number of large-scale events, which are to be rolled out as regional projects. Borough markets and audience sizes tend to be small and often unprofitable. The options for positively exploiting economies of scale are not in conflict with the need to secure ownership and control of borough-led projects. 

·Large-scale events may be one of the best options for engaging the wide range of cultural stakeholders. However, events cannot be imposed on unprepared delivery agencies and audiences. We offer a number of options, which have been well researched and tested. They are designed to help community groups adopt joint working and to discard internal competition for scarce resources. We also help to write bids to raise finance and support internal teams by facilitating networking. 

·Is your borough interested in starting critical debate? We have designed a number of public consultation events. Our neutral and objective approach helps to secure constructive outcomes. 

Do any of these strategic options appeal to you? We can work together to help shape and implement programmes which you can run and control in the long-term. We have worked with many London boroughs before and can send you information on beneficial outcomes for a wide range of stakeholders. 

Please contact me to set up an initial meeting without obligation. e-mail: href="mailto:kalwant.ajimal@btinternet.com">