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Include Us OutEconomic Development

and Social Policy in the Creative
Industries
Kate Oakley
Published online: 19 Jan 2007.

To cite this article: Kate Oakley (2006) Include Us OutEconomic Development and Social Policy in
the Creative Industries, Cultural Trends, 15:4, 255-273, DOI: 10.1080/09548960600922335
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09548960600922335

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Cultural Trends
Vol. 15, No. 4, December 2006, pp. 255 273

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Include Us OutEconomic
Development and Social Policy in the
Creative Industries
Kate Oakley

While Government claims about the UK as a global creative hub continue to be made
(Purnell, 2005), the contradictions and tensions in New Labours policy in the creative
industries have become more apparent. These include the tensions between a set of policies
for global media businesses versus the support for small firms in local economic development (Gilmore, 2004; Hesmondhalgh & Pratt, 2005), and the tension between citizens
and consumers in media and cultural policy (Hesmondhalgh, 2005). Equally apparent
are the tensions between economic development of these sectors and social inclusion. In
the UK, arguably more than other countries, the rhetoric of Creative Industries has
been tied into political ideas about the links between economic competitiveness and
social inclusion. The stated aims for creative industry development have thus been
twofoldto increase jobs and GDP, while simultaneously ameliorating social exclusion
and countering long-standing patterns of uneven economic development. Research,
however, suggests that supporting the creative industries is, at best, a problematic way
of tackling the issues of economic and social exclusion. The effects of gentrification on creative industry working and living space (Evans & Shaw, 2004); the patterns of informal
hiring and career progression in these sectors (Leadbeater & Oakley, 2001) and the
concentration of much economic activity in London and the South East, all suggest
that the development of these sectors might exacerbate rather than address patterns of
economic inequality.
Keywords: Creative Industries; Social Inclusion; Economic Development; Regeneration;
Citizenship; Cultural Policy

Correspondence to: Kate Oakley,

kate.oakley@btopenworld.com

22

Stansfield

Road,

ISSN 0954-8963 (print)/ISSN 1469-3690 (online) # 2006 Taylor & Francis

DOI: 10.1080/09548960600922335

London

SW9

9RZ,

UK.

Email:

256

K. Oakley

Introduction
A common criticism of the current Governments cultural policies is that they are
social policies by other means. John Holden in his pamphlet for Demos (Holden,
2004, p. 13) argued that the problem was that,

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Instead of talking about what they dodisplaying pictures or putting on dance performancesorganisations will need to demonstrate how they have contributed to
wider policy agendas such as social inclusion, crime prevention and learning.

This, he goes on to argue, results in an under-nourished version of the real value of

culture which could lead to unmanageable pressures on arts organizations, poor
investment decisions and the weakening of the cultural realm.
This concern about the instrumentalism of cultural policies of course has a longer
history, but it has recently been echoed widely, not only by arts advocates (Ellis, 2003;
Tusa, 2000) but by economists (Throsby, 2000) and even the Secretary of State for
Culture, Media and Sport (Jowell, 2004). These concerns are focused primarily on
the damaging impacts that such instrumentalism could have on cultural policy and
hence on arts and cultural organizations themselves.
While not necessarily wishing to take issue with any of these critiques, my concern
in this article is less with what impacts such approaches have on cultural policy, and
more about their inadequacy as social policy.
In order to explore these issues, I want to look in particular at the economic development initiatives undertaken under the general rubric of creative industries. My
argument is that many of the tensions and contradictions that critics detect in instrumentalist cultural policy are reflected in what could be described as the more marketfacing rhetoric of the creative industries. Far from being solely concerned with
providing employment and generating economic growth, the discourse of creative
industries in the UK from 1997 onwards has always reflected a concern with
broader social policieswhether under the auspices of urban regeneration or cultural
diversity.
This is not necessarily inappropriate: publicly funded economic development deals
with market failures and thus is often legitimately concerned with trying to ameliorate
market-based outcomes. What is problematic is the inherent tension between social
and economic goals in many cases and the desire to bury such tensions under the
mantle of creativity.

Terminology and Structure

It appears impossible to talk about these issues without long debates about terminology and definitions and, as is no doubt already apparent, this article will not be able to
avoid this problem. When talking about the creative industries, as defined below by the
UK Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), the article uses the term creative industries. When talking about the wider cultural sectors, the term, cultural and
creative industries, or more simply culture, which should be taken to include the

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257

creative industries, is used. Culture is used in the broader sense in all cases, unless
quoting others, not as simply a term that is synonymous with the arts.
In addition, the term creativity, now tends to be accorded a special status in terms
of the economy. This is problematic, as we do not have a clear enough notion of what
creativity constitutes in economic terms and it is not synonymous with innovation or
novelty, as is sometimes suggested. I shall therefore try not to use it at all.
Part 1 describes the primary contradictions and tensions in New Labours creative
industries policy and how this links to broader changes in the Labour governments
attitude to economic competitiveness and to social policy.
Part 2 goes on to describe how creative industries, a term that was deliberately
created to leave behind some of the ideological baggage associated with cultural
policy, has become becalmed in many of the same issues. It will then attempt to
examine some of the evidence in this area to see if creative-industries-led economic
development does indeed achieve the more balanced economic outcomes that some
of its advocates claim. The data in this area is far from complete, but we will consider
issues such as employment policy, urban regeneration and labour market
participation.
The article will end with a consideration of what this tells us about New Labour
politics more generally and how we might begin a re-statement of policy in this area.
Part 1: Contradictions and Tensions in Creative Industries Policy
One of the difficulties in analysing creative industries policy is, as Pratt (2005) has
commented, that there is relatively little of it about. The current Creative Economy
programme at DCMS is expected to produce a Green Paper in the autumn, but
until then one is forced either to return to old texts such as Chris Smithss Creative
Britain (Smith, 1998) or piece together what passes for policy from Ministerial
speeches and statements (Purnell, 2005). On the other hand, statements about the
creative industries and their role in economic development find their way into a
whole host of regional policy documents (see Table 1), appearing as priority
sectors in almost every English region (and Scotland and Wales).
Cities, regions and even rural areas have taken up the message promoted by DCMS
that public investment in this sector can help stimulate economic growth. Indeed,
former Creative Industries (now pensions) Minister James Purnell described this as
activity that had happened under the radar of national policy (Capitalising on creativity, 2005), though one might more accurately describe it as happening in the
absence of national policy. Confusions and tensions therefore are often more apparent
to those working on the ground in creative industries developments, than they might
be from simply perusing the statements of DCMS.
Many of these are publicly funded creative intermediaries (Fleming, 2004), an
occupational group which has seen considerable growth since 1997. They are also
increasingly a self-conscious group with networks and forums of their own (e.g.,
FOCI1) and it is among such intermediaries that I want to suggest that awareness of
these contradictions is highest. That this awareness has few ways of feeding back

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Table 1 Creative Industry StrategiesRegions and Nations

Region

Broad definition

London

Creative Industries identified as a key

growth area for the London economy.
Creative London, a 10-year strategy,
launched in 2004, includes support of
10 creative hubs, the provision of
workspaces, advice on intellectual
property rights etc.
www.creativelondon.org.uk
Support for both culturally led
regeneration of south coast and
Thames Gateway and creative inputs
into broad knowledge economy of
inner south east
Media and Cultural Industries
identified in economic strategy as one
of 9 sectors forecast to experience
strong employment and output
growth over the decade

South East

East of England

South West
West Midlands

Creative Industries one of 8 key sectors

Creative Industries identified as priority
sector in RDAs first economic
strategy

East Midlands

A mapping of the regions Creative

Industries has been undertaken.
Creative clusters have been identified
at a sub-regional level: Derbyshire
design, crafts and architecture;
Leicestershiredesign and
publishing. Next version of Regional
Economic Strategy may drop the
mention of creative industries.

North West

Creative Industries identified as one of

16 priority clusters

North East

Focus has been very much on cultural

regeneration, e.g., Gateshead/
Newcastle. But Creative Industries
are identified as one of 14 main
clusters
Creative Industries identified as one of 5
clusters in the economic development
strategy

Yorkshire and
Humber

Sub-sectoral focus

Focus on digital technology in

inner south eastvisual
arts-led developments on
the South Coast and
Thames gateway
EEDA has a lead officer for the
sector. Film, animation,
new media, games,
software, architecture and
electronic publishing have
all been identified as
important
Uses DCMS definition
Priorities have focused on
clusters and sub-sectors:
media; ICT; and high value
consumer products
(designer-makers,
ceramics, glass, furniture,
jewellery)
Definition in use
encompasses digital and
non-digital creative
industries in alignment
with DCMS, but is
augmented by print and
packaging; heritage,
museums and archives;
internet publishing; and
trading
Priority sectors: music,
design. Others: media,
designer fashion, and visual
arts

The digital cluster has been

identified as the major
priority
(Table continued )

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Table 1 Continued
Region

Broad definition

Sub-sectoral focus

Scotland

One of 15 clusters identified in the

Winning Scotland strategy. Within
Creative Industries, the focus is on
digital content industries and the aim
is for 30% growth over 3 5 years

Games; radio and television;

new media; film; music
production; design;
publishing; architecture;
advertising; arts; and
cultural industries

Wales

Media, Creative and Culture-related

sector seen as one of 11 critical to
growth and where Wales can gain
competitive advantage.
Concentrations identified in Cardiff
and Caernarfon
Arts and creativity in very broad terms
are promoted through the
Department of Culture, Arts and
Leisure. The purpose is to harness
and mainstream creativity in cultural,
education, training and economic
areas. Under the Unlocking
Creativity Action plan, Invest NI
plans a 4.5 m investment in creative
companies, infrastructure and
capability development support

Northern Ireland

into policy and even fewer ways of feeding into academic discourse in the creative
industries is testament to the separation between thinking and doing that plagues
many areas of public policy in the UK.
One of the most apparent tensions in creative industries policy is that described by
Hesmondhalgh and Pratt as,
the intertwined story that we are told of the development of the cultural industries
as big businesses and the development of local and national cultural industries
policy. (2005, p. 6)

In other words, is the DCMS responsible for producing a set of policies for Pearsons
and EMI, or for one and two man organizations? And if the answer is both, can both
sets of needs be accommodated in policies about intellectual property, funding, training or land use?
It could be argued that the UK has been more successful in generating small firms
than it has been in growing larger ones and indeed that it has lost international competitiveness in some of the creative industry sub-sectors, such as videogames, where it
showed earlier promise (Leadbeater & Oakley, 2001; NESTA, 2006). If this is the case,
then it may need to re-orient its strategy away from the independents towards firms
and sub-sectors where the UK has a genuine international advantage. But if it decides
to do so it must do so in the full knowledge that this will undermine much of the

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activity of the last eight years or so and may widen regional disparities, already acute in
these sectors, even further.
The tensions with which this paper is primarily concerned, are those between the
creative industries as a source of economic growth and simultaneously a source of
social inclusion. Arguing that there is a link between increased employment, economic
growth and the development of welfare policies to ameliorate the worse aspects of
inequality, is hardly new and was a feature of both (non-Thatcherite) Tory and
Labour governments throughout the twentieth century. But these tensions have
sharpened under New Labour as inequality has increased (Barry, 2005; Giddens &
Diamond, 2005) and regional disparities have grown (Adams, Vigor & Robinson,
2003). At the same time, and in a departure from Thatcherism, rhetoric about and
indeed policies for, combating social exclusion, have also grown.
A Labour government, however new and however keen to challenge the shibboleths of its past, cannot rid itself entirely of a concern with social inclusion. Indeed,
it was a defining element of the third way (Giddens, 1998) politics that the party
briefly espoused, that while state-based solutions to exclusion were considered to
have failed, the fact of social exclusion was argued to be neither inevitable nor necessary for economic prosperity. Some (Leadbeater, 1999) went so far as to argue that in an
economy where high levels of human capital were increasingly necessary for competitiveness, the waste of human capital represented by unemployment or poor educational attainment could harm the UKs competitiveness. While this (together with
the performance of the economy) strengthened Labours economic credentials, it
did so by again casting an instrumentalist hue on traditional concerns with social
justice. In other words people needed good schools and hospitals, safe streets and
effective transport, because it enabled them to be more economically productive. The
good life thus became rather thin in conception and when yoked to a neo-liberal
economics policy, rather fragile in execution.
Helping Those Who Help ThemselvesNew Labour Meritocrats
As David Hesmondhalgh has recent argued in an article on New Labours media and
cultural policy (2005), although clearly neo-liberal in many of its attitudes towards the
supremacy of markets and its preference for private over public approaches, the
current New Labour government also retains elements of older Labour traditions
including social authoritarianism, paternalism and social democracy. Indeed, one of
the more unremarked-upon tensions in New Labour is between its sometime celebration of creative modernity (Redhead, 2004), particularly in the first Administration,
and its social authoritarianismdisplayed clearly in its confusion over the Licensing
Act (DCMS, 2003), anti-smoking legislation and rave culture (Home Office, 1997) and
the current respect agenda (Blair, 2006).
Where it departs clearly from its social democratic antecedents (Clarke, in press;
Coates, 2001), is in its attitudes to class and to workentrepreneurs in and
workers out. It has distanced itself from the trade unions and generally shown
itself to be more comfortable in appealing to middle England, than to its traditional

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roots in the labour and trade union movements. While it has retained elements of both
regulation of markets and of re-distribution, it has done the latter by stealth (Jessop,
in press) and regulated, while continuing to deplore the need for regulation, and
publicly at least, aspiring to set business free from the burden of red tape.
But, as Marquand (2004) has argued, it is in its attitude to the public realm and the
denigration of this in favour of private interests and marketization, that New Labour
has perhaps most profoundly broken with its past. Hesmondhalgh (2005) gives the
example of the Communications Act 2003, and the use of the term citizen-consumer
within Ofcom, to explore the narrowing nature of the notion of publicness under
New Labour. He argues that the public as in public service broadcasting shrank
from an expansive concept of market failure as late as 1997 (p. 103) to a situation
where the role of public service broadcasters is simply to make programmes that
would not be made by the private sector. As Hesmondhalgh comments,
Labours media policy then, is imbued with a notion of the public interest and the
public service; but it also involves a marketisation of media and communications
which threaten ultimately to erode the public domain. In this respect it echoes its
policies more generally. (p. 104)

More intriguingly, in a debate at Goldsmiths College on Media Policy Making and

Power,2 Lord Puttnam in his discussion of the battle over the 2003 Communications
Act revealed that New Labour policy makers were confused by the anxiety displayed by
organizations such as Public Voice over the term consumer-citizen. Not because the
term itself was confusing (although it is) but because they thought citizens to be subset of consumers, and that looking after the interest of citizens would naturally follow
from a consumer-centred strategy for broadcasting.
New Labours notion of the citizen is thus as Clarke (2005) described it, a hybrid,
drawing on social democratic and communitarian conceptions of the citizen, but
dominated by the neo-liberal concern to liberate the citizen from the state. The
focus of policy moves from the collective to the individual, albeit an individual
with responsibilities to his or her neighbourhood, company or family.
In this context, difference becomes diversity, an individual characteristic, with a liberating potential, rather than a social condition that leads to inequality. The structural
conditions that produce inequality thus receive rather less attention than the individual characteristics needed to make the most of an insecure, competitive world. What
Hesmondhalgh (2005, p. 99) calls Labours meritocratic impulse leads to an emphasis
in its social policy on attacking exclusion rather than challenging inequality. The processes that produce exclusionclass differences, the role of education, the operation of
marketsbecome a givenall one can do is adapt.

Part 2: New Labour Creative Industries Policy

In fashioning creative industries policy in the wake of its landslide victory, New Labour
was focused firmly on the creative individual or independent (Oakley & Leadbeater,
1999). It accepted that such people were, or at least thought of themselves as being,

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highly individualistic, anti-authoritarian and in some cases, anti-corporate. The downsizing of the 1980s had convinced them that the job for life was unattainable, and possibly
undesirable and that work could be about self-expression, as well as personal enrichment.
But this was not the nineteenth-century cult of the creative genius revisited. If the
focus was on individuals to adapt to changing economic circumstances, they were not
alone in doing so. Not only was New Labour interested in re-designing the role of
public services to aid individual empowerment, but it was also keen on encouraging
new forms of collaboration. The site of this collaboration had changed, the network
rather than the trade union say, but it would be wrong to under-estimate the
degree to which these collaborative forms of endeavours were seen by New Labourpolicymakers as a counter-point to the atomized individual.
Alongside the rhetoric about creative entrepreneurs therefore, there was also a set of
assumptions, some more explicit that others, about the role that such entrepreneurship could play in remaking places (see Evans & Shaw, 2004, for discussion) and in
aiding social cohesion. The idea that these activities were rooted in, and in some
cases expressive of, place meant that they were seen as good long-term investments,
particular for cities and regions still struggling with de-industrialization. The perception that the creative class was meritocratic, open to talent and unlikely to be bound by
prejudices about race, gender or sexuality, led to the hope that these sectors opened up
routes to participation among those from excluded groups.
Traditions of popular culture from music to videogames, the strength of subcultural identity, the informal skills associated with creativity and in some cases the
low capital entry that digital technology opened up, all combined to suggest that
the growth of a creative economy was one in which everyone could play.
The stress on supported self help and entrepreneurship tied in with the search for
new ways of tackling the so-called wicked problems. And New Labours rejection
of old Labour ways to tackle poverty and inequality meant that it had to look elsewhere for solutions to these problems. Creativity fitted the bill not just because, as
Gibson and Klocker (2005) say, it spoke to the liberated individual, but also
because it spoke to the new collective. Creative entrepreneurs may be individualistic,
but they were collaborative; they may be competitive but they were concerned.
But the limitations of this self-help strategy were soon to become apparent. The
development of the creative industries was taking place within a highly unequal
context, both socially and geographically. The much-vaunted knowledge economy,
(DTI, 1998) represented an aspiration rather than a reality for many of the cities
and regions trying to develop the creative industries. In other words the conditions
that were needed to support the growth of localized creative economies, high levels
of human capital, a developed consumer market for local creative products, institutional understanding and collaboration did not, in many cases, exist.
And the barriers to entry in these sectors, while sometimes opened up by digital
technology, were often closed again just as quickly by individuals lack of social connections. The limitations of network sociality (Wittel, 2001) as a mechanism for
ensuring not just labour market participation, but a broader sense of social cohesion,
would soon become apparent.

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263

Next we will look at the how the creative industries market has developed and in
particular at the evidence for social inclusion through labour markets, regional distribution and re-generation.

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Happy Mondays? Work in the Creative Industries

Even in his relentlessly optimistic account of the creative economy, Richard Florida
(2002) admits to a gaping hole in his picture of high technology, meritocratic,
talent-driven growth that his creative class inspires. His so-called diversity index, in
fact captures the presence of foreign-born workers within a regional economy, not
its ethnic diversity and, as he admits, within the US, the gaping hole refers to the
exclusion of US-born African Americans and other non-white citizens. Within high
technology in particular, with which Florida is primarily concerned, he detects a negative correlation between concentrations of firms and the percentage of US-born nonwhite citizens.
One might have thought that in the broader creative industries, away from high
technology, black and minority ethnic (BME) populations would fare better, but
despite the celebrated creativity of the BME population and the influence of urban
black culture on everything from fashion and popular music to everyday speech
patterns, the picture in the UK is similarly bleak. About 4.6 per cent of the creative
and cultural industry workforce in the UK is from an ethic minority background
(Leadbeater, 2005) compared with 7 per cent of the UK labour force as a whole.
This is even more disturbing when one considers the concentration of creative
industry employment in London, where over a quarter of the labour force is from
an ethnic minority backgroundup to 35 per cent in inner London. And the
younger age profile of the BME population means that it should make up a relatively
higher proportion of the economically active population than a simple per capita
comparison with the white population might suggest.
This pattern is repeated and even intensified in particular sub-sectors such as the
media. Skillset, the training organization that covers the audio-visual sectors,
reports that employment of ethnic minorities in these industries is around 7 per
centthough more than half the industry is based in inner London where around
35 per cent of the working age population are from an ethnic minority. When one
looks at what people actually do, a clear occupational skewing also becomes
evident. Much ethnic minority employment in the film industry is accounted for by
the exhibition and distribution end of the value chaina quarter of all cinema cleaners are BMEat the higher occupation level, BME representation drops off
dramatically.
Although the Skillset census, from which these numbers are drawn, has only been in
operation since 2000, making long-term trends difficult to calculateshort-term
movements give little reason for optimism. Reported representation of ethnic minorities had decreased slightly between 2003 and 2004 and although the degree of
change is well within any margin of error, it suggests that reaching representative
levels of employment in these sectors may be some way off.

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A study of BME-led creative industry businesses for the London Development Agency
(Respect, 2004; see Table 2) noted that BME business ownership and self-employment is
generally higher than in the white population and argued that there was some sort of
shift into sectors such as design, music and media among businesses owners, away
from more traditional sectors such as retailing. In addition, such business owners were
more likely to be formally educated in the activities connected to their business, indicating the importance of a BME graduate labour force among these creative entrepreneurs.
Despite this, in sectors where professional employment was strongly connected to
education pathwayssuch as architectureBME participation, particularly at the
higher level, remained very low. In other words, where barriers to entry are relatively
low or require modest capital inputsuch as in crafts or some forms of new media
BME participation is growing. Where barriers to entry are qualification or education
based and hence the influence of social class is stronger, less progress has been made.
In terms of gender the picture is less stark. The proportion of men and women in the
creative and cultural industries workforce is very similar to that of the whole economy
55 per cent of employment is male and 45 per cent is female. Those sub-sectors with an
above-average proportion of part-time employment, such as crafts, museums and galleries, employ proportionally more women than men. While sectors such as advertising,
which is 60 per cent male, have generally higher levels of full-time employment.
In the audio-visual sub-sectors (radio, TV, film), however, where competition for
entry is particularly fierce, there is generally lower representation of women (only
40 per cent of the labour force is female) than in the other creative industry sectors.
In addition, while women make up almost a third of the film production workforce,
they are not only concentrated in lower paid occupations but are also lower paid on
average than men in equivalent age and occupation brackets.
The Policy FixOpening Up the Networks
It is fair to say that the unrepresentative nature of the creative industry workforce has
at least attracted a good deal of policy attention, not only in London, where the large
Table 2 Ethnicity of the Creative and Cultural Industries Workforce,1 by Sub-sector
(% of Total Employment, UK)

Whole economy
Advertising
Design
Heritage, museums and galleries
Performing, visual and literary arts
Publishing

White (%)

Asian

Black (%)

Mixed other (%)

93
92
96
95
95
91

2%
2%
1%
1%

3
2
2
3
3
3

2
3
1
1
2
4

3%

Source: Labour Force Survey, Spring 2004.

1
Data is only available for particular sub-sectors and these categorizations correspond to those used by CCISkills,
the training organization that covers some of the creative industry sub-sectors.

too small to be counted within the margin of error.

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ethnic minority population makes this an issue of particular political importance, but
even among the national training organizations.
Both Skillset and Creative and Cultural Skills (CCSkills), who are charged with
developing skills and training policy for most of the activities which comprise the creative industries, have committed themselves to ensuring a more diverse workforce in
their respective industriesin both cases by developing a more formal set of qualifications and accreditations to promote labour mobility. The argument is that in a
sector heavily dependent on social networks for entry and advancement and where
experience is often gained in unpaid first jobs such as film industry runners, the disadvantage to those who lack friends or relatives in these sectors, or cannot afford to
work for free is very clear. The Skillset 2003 labour force survey reported only 28
per cent of those surveyed had gained a first job in these sectors via an advertisement
in a newspaper, with the majority using less formal channels such as friends and relatives (Skillset, 2003).
The traditional scepticism of employers in these sectors about formal qualifications
(versus experience) could act as a break on such initiatives and it remains to be seen
how successful the skills councils are in issues such as the accreditation of prior learning, which can help overcome educational disadvantage in some cases.
More difficult to counteract is the impact of social networks as an element of labour
market exclusion. Mark Granovetters observations in the 1970s about the strength of
weak ties (1983) has been taken up by policy makers to argue that such loose social
linksto a range of people well beyond kinships and familycan be more effective in
securing access to the labour market (and to other social goods) than the formal structure of job centres or employment agencies (see Perri 6, 1997, for a discussion).
The notion that government has some role in enabling people to develop and use
such weak tie networks has thus become accepted, but the problems of doing so
remain immense. In part this is because of self-image of the creative industries
labour force (encouraged by writers such as Florida who praise their tolerance and
diversity), is indeed one of openness to talent and lack of overt discrimination.
In many years of interviewing creative industry workers, the notion that these
sectors remain the preserve of a well-educated elite is always greeted with protestations
of horror and evident discomfort. But it is perhaps the very unconscious nature of
these barriers which makes them most difficult to surmount. In recent study
(Oakley & Erskine, 2004) of a creative industries network based at Londons Institute
of Contemporary Arts (ICA), the issue of participation in the networks was a subject
of discussion.
The Club, as it is known, is a network of over 500 young cultural entrepreneurs,
from fashion designers to filmmakers, digital producers to architects. Established in
2000, it is hosted at the ICA and aims to gives its members a forum in which to
network and initiate commercial and creative collaborations. It offers members
monthly seminars and practical workshops to develop business skills and, as such,
is similar to tens, if not hundreds, of other such creative industry support networks
across the UK. The membership is youngish (44 per cent are below 35), gender
balanced (53 per cent of members are women) and relatively diverse (14 per cent

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were BME, which is lower than the proportion of Londons working age population,
but higher than creative industries employment figures would suggest). But it is also
heavily weighted towards graduates, particularly from elite colleges such as the Royal
College of Art. Introduction to the network is via personal recommendation, yet many
interviewees expressed surprise that this should have any limiting effects on the type of
people who become members.
One interviewee3 commented,
the fact that you have to find out about it yourself is good, as it means it attracts the
right crowdpeople who are ambitious, sociable and dedicated to working in creative fields, not just there for a free drink.

Other argued that the ICA was an ideal place to host such a networks as it was, really
easy to find, or in the middle of London. The notion that having the confidence to
go to the ICA and introduce yourself to strangers, albeit ones who are open to such
introductions and having to do the same themselves, is not a characteristic that is
equally distributed in the population, was seen largely as a personal failing, if it
was seen as all.
The Club is indeed collaborative, members give freely of their own time and many
expressed a willingness to mentor new recruits or to take part in (unpaid) collaborative activities such as re-design of the website. The argument is not that such networks
are simply masks for self-aggrandisement and individual advance, nor that the individuals who take part in them are de-spatialized or de-socialized (McRobbie,
2000); but that they are themselves the product of structural social inequalities of
which, despite high levels of formal education, they are profoundly unconscious. If
traditional means of opening up employment to excluded groups, such as via equal
opportunities legislation, has been less than successful, the problems facing those
seeking to integrate the workforce of these looser forms of employment are, if anything, more complex and difficult.

The London EffectThe Geography of the Creative Economy

Unlike labour market participation, which has at least attracted policy makers attention, the issue of geographic concentration in the creative industries has so far
attracted less attention. This may be because much of the activity has happened at
regional and local level, whether it is the establishment of networks such as the
Creative Industries Development service (CIDS) in Manchester or high profile cultural regeneration projects such as Sage in Newcastle/Gateshead. There is a perception
that much of the running has been made at regional level, and this is arguably true,
though it has done little to shift the bulk of economic activity or job creation from
its traditional home.
By far the greatest proportion of employment in the Creative and Cultural
Industries is located in the south of Englandnamely London and the South East.
Combined, these two regions account for 46 per cent of the creative industry workforce compared with 27 per cent of the total UK workforce.

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Only 11 per cent of creative industry employment is located in the devolved administrations (Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales) and 43 per cent in the remaining
seven English regions.
There are also distinct concentrations of employment in specific sub-sectors, such as
advertising. Around 40 per cent of advertising employment is located in London, compared to just 16 per cent of design employment and only 17 per cent of heritage,
museums and galleries employment is located in the capital. The subsidized cultural
sectors tend to have a more graphic dispersed profile, in part at least as the result of
60-odd years of Arts Council and other public funding. This is also consistent with
other parts of the UK economy, where the public sector is relatively more important
as an employer (particularly of graduates) the further one gets from the capital (Local
Futures, 2004).
Another way of looking at the same phenomenon is the percentage of turnover represented by London-based firms in creative industry sub-sectors. As Table 3 shows, in
many cases this is even more significant than the percentage of employment, in part
because highly specialized, high-value-added activities are more likely to be found in
the capital, and some activities, such as film distribution are almost only found in London.
The more local nature of the creative industries outside London and the South East is
indicated by levels of export activity, which are strikingly uneven across the UK, and are
dominated by London and the South East. Even in the North West region, with the third
highest creative industries workforce, exports account for less than 3 per cent of sales.
In recent years most of the growth in cultural and creative sectors in the UK has
been in small cities. Surprisingly only 18 cities exceeded the English average change
of 0.89 per cent (ODPM, 2006). The majority of these are located in the south and
east. They include obvious places like Cambridge, Oxford and Brighton, but also

Table 3 Londons Share of Creative Industry Employment

CI sub-sector
Advertising
Arts and Antiques
Design
Film and Video
Music
Publishing
Television
Architecture
Crafts
Designer Fashion
Performing Arts
Software and
Services
Radio
Source: Respect (2004).

London as a
percentage of
UK employment (%)

London as a
percentage of
UK turnover (%)

35 40
20
25 30
25 30
30
30 35
30
20
10 12
35
30 35
25 30

40
25
30 35
30
35
35
30 40
25
15
35 40
35 40
30

35 40

35 40

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less obvious ones like Luton, Aldershot/Guildford, Crawley and Milton Keynes. The
geography of change in the creative and cultural industries shows a by now familiar
pattern. There is a club of cities in the south and east that have experienced the
highest rates of increase in creative and cultural industry employees. Outside this
club there are other isolated cities that have had positive rates of change, but the
regional effects of these appear weaker.
The uneven nature of nature of these developments is not peculiar to the creative
industries and is indeed symptomatic of the UK economy as a whole. Despite much
of the progressive-sounding rhetoric that has accompanied it, the focus on developing
knowledge based sectors (finance and business services, science and technology, creative industries) has led to widening economic disparities in the UK, both between
regions and inter-regionally.
In the UK, it is commonly referred to as the NorthSouth dividealthough in
reality it is one between London and the South East of England on one hand and
the rest of the UK on the other. While knowledge workers, thanks to the growth of
ICTs, could in theory be based anywhere; in fact around a third of knowledge-intensive
employment in the private sector is in London (Local Futures, 2002)
If one considers economic productivity measured by local authority area, only four
of the top 50 districts in the UK are not from London, South East or East (sometimes
referred to as the greater South East); none of the bottom 10 is from that region (Local
Futures, 2006).
The political centralization of the UK has a clear role in this, as is reflected in concentration of R&D (research and development), higher education, media, cultural spending,
large government sectors, technical and scientific institutions and so on. Rather than
countering this, Government policy appears to support it, particularly when it comes
to investment in R&D (ODPM, 2006). On most measures there is a strong centralization
of research in the UK and research-related activity (staff, funding, PhD awards, publications) is highly concentrated in the three regions of London and the South East
(Cambridge obviously boosts the standing of the East of England). This is strongly the
case in science, where London and the South East receive 49 per cent of direct Government funding and 47 per cent of money routed through universities; compared to equivalent figures of 3 per cent and 10 per cent in the North West, say, but similar arguments
from arts funding or the lottery could be added, not to mention the huge regional boost
represented by the location of the Olympics in East London.
Despite this, the nations and regions of the UK are following remarkably similar
strategies for economic development, particularly with regard to clusters of companies. In regional development strategies, there is often a focus on bio-pharma, communications and IT, creative industries and tourism. These are common to many
national strategies on competitiveness in other parts of the world as they are seen to
offer potential for growth, but it seems unrealistic to suppose that each part of the
UK could develop critical mass in all sectors.
Unlike bio-pharma, however, the barriers to entry in creative industries (with some
exceptions) are lower and it therefore seems reasonable to expect that one could
develop some sort of economic activity in these sectors in some, if not all, of the

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UKs regions. The issue is to do so within the context of a clearly defined regional
policy, which sees regional policy makers focusing on the development of local creative
economies (in say performing arts, crafts and visual arts, music) where it makes sense,
and developing improved relationships with Londons clients, customers and supply
chains where the market is national or global. Doing this would mean breaking up
the notion of the creative industries as a homogenous group and focusing more
on sub-sectoral strength and weaknesses. A regional policy for the advertising industry
would make no sense, as the UKs advertising industry clearly benefits from its concentration in a global city and the strengths of its international networks; while sectors
such as music, visual arts or even broadcasting could build on regional strengths, as
the BBC might demonstrate if it ever completes the move to Manchester. At the
moment, regions are desperately trying to compete with one another to grow competitive clusters of their own, with little prospect of delivering more than the last eight
years has done and seeing regional disparities grow still wider.
Bricks and MortarThe Creative Class Wreaks Havoc
Into the midst of this uneven geographic and social picture, the work of US academic
Richard Florida (Florida, 2002, 2005) has been taken up with enthusiasm by policy
makers keen to follow his prescriptions for economic development based on attracting
the creative class. While fundamentally a re-stating of the ideas of new growth theory
put forward by Romer and others (Romer, 1994), Floridas use of the word creative,
and his stress on the amenities provided by urban environments, have lead some to
assume that he has a prescription for creative industry-led economic developments.
In fact, Floridas work is largely concerned with high technology growth and the
degree to which his class is creative is more aligned with their consumptions patterns
(although much of Floridas evidence on this is anecdotal), that with their productive
activities. In other words, the group of people he is talking about in no sense represent
a class in the Marxian sense, either in their relationship to the means of production or
in their collective class consciousness (Nathan, 2005).
Criticism of Floridas work, particularly that its rapid adoption into policy outside
the US reveals a lack of recognition of the different political, social and economic circumstances that prevail elsewhere (Douglas & Morrow, 2003; Gertler, 2004; Gibson &
Klocker, 2005; Oakley, 2004), has grown and I would like to focus here in particular on
the issue of mobility and its potential to damage the stated aspirations of policy
makers for more socially balanced economic development.
The first thing to say is that economic development based entirely on labour mobility is unlikely to work in the UK as Britons, in common with other Europeans, are
much less geographically mobile than people in the US. Only about 10 per cent of
households move every year in England, of whom only about 1 per cent move
between regions (Donovan, Pilch & Rubenstein, 2002). Thus trying to regenerate,
for example, the North East of England, solely via a strategy of attracting the
mobile creative class, not only risks problems associated with gentrification, but is
unlikely to succeed in attracting people in sufficient numbers.

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Moreover, even in countries where geographic mobility is higher, such as Australia, the
number of favoured places to which the creative class will move is generally very small. In
a regional analysis (National Economics, 2002), based on Floridas indexes, winning
regions (i.e., those with high level of patenting, with a highly qualified labour force
and that attracted migrants) were all in the central areas of state capital cities, predominantly Sydney and Melbourne. This should surprise no-one. As Heath and Potter (2005)
remark, in the past every city had its own members of the bourgeois elite, judges, bankers,
professors, doctors and so on, now the members of the creative class are almost completely abandoning entire regional areas and congregating in a handful of centres (p. 208).
The truly problematic aspect, as Gibson and Klocker (2005) point out, is that
instead of seeing this unevenness as an outcome of longer term social and economic
inequalities, it is all too easy to conflate this with particular cultural characteristics.
In other words, groups that score less well on creativity, indexes are deemed to be
lacking in particular characteristics; places that are insufficiently attractive to this
group, are deemed to be failing. The fact that such characteristics are often simply
the taste preferences of a particular class, is disarmingly revealed in the Australian
State of the Regions report, which remarks in passing,
Where concentrations of the working class exist, the requisite locational characteristics to attract the creative class are absent. (National Economics, 2002, p. 12)

As Haylett (2003, p. 410) has observed of such discussions, working classness is often
reduced to a condition in need of alleviation.
Instead of being attempts to release the imagination and innovation of local communities, therefore, public money is spent developing amenities that appeal to outsidersthe pay off presumably being that the jobs and growth they are deemed to bring,
will trickle down to local communities. Thirty or more years of research on this
suggest that the evidence for beneficial trickle down effects is non-existent.
Thus, using Floridas prescriptions, regional growth strategies are reduced to both a
recipe for, and a justification of, gentrification. And this is where gentrification is even
possiblein a competition for mobile labour, what of the places that lose out?
ConclusionA New Agenda for Creative Industries Policy
The argument of this article has been that post-1997 creative industries policy has contained a rather incoherent social policy agenda, based on flawed assumptions and on
which is has therefore failed to deliver. Assumptions about the spread of a knowledge
economy, across the UK, have fallen foul of the UKs traditional economic geography,
which sees a continuing concentration of political, cultural and business activities in
London and the South East. Attempts to remedy this through regional initiatives have
been varyingly successful in supporting small and micro businesses, but have in no way
reversed the traditional patterns of uneven development.
The perceptions that the creative industries are open to talent, and are indeed
dependent on diverse talent, have also been somewhat optimistic. The employment
of black and ethnic minority workers in these sectors is below the national average

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for other types of work. There is not enough research on this to be definitivebut it
appears that the strength and importance of social networks in these sectors act as a
barrier to more diverse employment in many cases.
And the rather disastrous flirtation with notions of the creative class, has simply
increased inner-city property prices such that local creatives, and other lower paid
workers, are often forced to move elsewhere.
A reasonable response might be to query why anyone should expect anything different. The answer is that the socially sustainable possibility of these developments has
been a constantly re-iterated theme since 1997 and has indeed formed part of a defining New Labour idea, that economic development is the pre-requisite of social justice.
In addition, the patterns of network sociability to be found in these sectors have often
been advanced as alternatives to traditional public policy: remedies for everything
from crime to poor educational attainment.
Creativity has been vital to New Labours re-positioning of itself as the party of the
aspirational middle class and the withdrawal of interventionist positions in a variety of
policy areas in favour of a self-help strategy. If creativity has been fetishized at the
level of the individual, it has also fed notions of enhanced social capital as the
answer to both individual and collective problems.
The particular mix of cultural, economic and social assumptions buried in the terms
creativity, now need to be unpicked and critically examined if we are to progress either
in economically developing the creative industries, or in understanding the role of creative
activities in society more generally. This is not just a plea to shed the regeneration baggage,
from creative industries particularly in a situation where it is not clear who/what else will
pick it up. But the economic potential of these activities, in terms of employment and
growth, are more likely to be met by a focus on those high growth activities in creative
content production, than they are by using the same terminology for everything from
visual art in Folkestone to the software and services of the M4 corridor, to the BBC.
Moreover, policies for social inclusion or enhanced equality need to be developed in
their own right, not as an adjunct to economic development. There is no evidence to
suggest than an economically competitive society cannot be one with a great degree of
inequality and injusticetackling that should be a social and political priority, not an
instrumental way of producing more film makers or videogames designers.
Notes
[1] See www.foci.org.uk
[2] See http://www.goldsmiths.ac.uk/departments/media-communications/journalismunit.php
and www.foci.org.uk
[3] Interview by the author in September, 2004.

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