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The Government could be missing a trick by not including the UK’s thriving creative industries sector in their eleven priorities for economic growth, according to a new report from the think tank IPPR to be published next month.

New analysis from IPPR shows that growth in the creative industries was nearly three times the average since the bottom of the crash in 2009 and more than 25 times the average across the flat-lining economy in 2012.

The IPPR analysis comes ahead of new data from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, to be published later this week.

• GVA growth for the creative industries for 2011 and 2012 was 7.9% and 7.7% respectively compared to just 1.1% and 0.3% across the whole economy.
• GVA growth since the bottom of the crash in 2009 was 8.7% compared to 3.1% across the whole economy
• Turnover has increased by 8.7% since the bottom of the crash in 2009.
• The number of enterprises has grown from 185,000 in 2008 to 217,000 in 2012 – an increase of 18%
• The biggest increases have come from the film and TV, advertising and marketing, and design industries.

The report will reveal that the pattern of growth is patchy across the country with much of the focus still on London and the South East. In arguing for an industrial strategy for the creative industries, IPPR will recommend measures to support growth outside of London in areas where potential is greatest such as Manchester for media and advertising, Teesside for gaming, Bristol for architecture and the West Midlands for design.

Will Straw, Associate Director at IPPR, said:

“The Government is committed to a ‘march of the makers’ but is not taking seriously the impressive efforts of one of the fastest growing industries in the UK. The government already has a major impact on this industry through Arts Council funding, the BBC license review, spectrum policy, broadband roll-out, skills policy, tax reliefs, intellectual property regulation, export promotion and so on but the failure to provide a coherent industrial strategy across government departments risks squandering some of the great potential for growth and job creation that the sector has to offer.

“Given the rapid growth of this sector, which has been rapidly outstripping the rest of the economy since the financial crisis, there is a strong case for the creative industries to be prioritised by government. Eleven other sectors have been chosen but there seems to be little rationale for their inclusion while omitting one of Britain's most thriving and exciting industries.”

Notes to Editors

IPPR’s analysis is based on data from the ONS Annual Business Survey. It measures the creative industries by using the ONS Standard Industrial Classification codes proposed in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport’s consultation, ‘Classifying and measuring the creative industries’. The codes are organised into seven Broad Sectors, as proposed in the consultation. They are ‘Advertising and Marketing’, ‘Architecture’, ‘Design and designer fashion’, ‘Film, TV, video, radio, and photography’, ‘IT, software, and computer services’, ‘Publishing’, and ‘Music, performing and visual arts’.

Examples of creative hubs are taken from the Creative England report ‘Connecting and growing creative businesses through engagement with higher education institutions’.

IPPR’s new report will be published in full at the annual Oxford Media Conference on Weds 26 February, with speeches from Culture Secretary Maria Miller, BBC Director General Tony Hall, Ofcom Chair Collette Bowe and Shadow Culture Secretary Harriet Harman. For details of the event see: http://www.ippr.org/events/54/11659/oxford-media-convention-2014

For details on IPPR’s project on an industrial strategy for creative industries, see: http://www.ippr.org/research-project/44/11265/industrial-strategy-for-the-creative-industries

Contacts

Natalie Cox, 07983 550 337, n.cox@ippr.org

Richard Darlington, 07525 481 602, r.darlington@ippr.org