BOP Consulting's Culture and Creative Industries Blog

BOP rings the changes with a new website and a new home for the blog

BOP is today launching its redesigned website. As part of the revamp, this blog will be returning to the mothership as well - from now on, you can find the blog here.

The new website is only one of several changes at BOP in the last couple of months. We have moved (London) office to Farringdon, and there has been some internal restructuring in the company. Jo Burns, one of the company's founders (she's the 'B' in BOP) is stepping down as a director, though she will continue to work for BOP on projects. Richard Naylor and Alex Homfray have been appointed directors in her place. Meanwhile, Bethany Lewis, who has been working with us on a part-time basis for some months, is joining us as a full-time researcher.

Anyway, you can find out more at our website. Please have a look and let us know what you think.

Reflections on State of the Arts 2012 conference

State of the Arts is an annual conference held under the auspices of Arts Council England looking at the state of the sector. 2012's edition took place on Tuesday of this week, in Salford, with keynote addresses from Ed Vaizey and Liz Forgan. The conference seems to have been something of a mixed bag (as such things often are) and some participants have already published their impressions of the day. Here is a summary of the social media streams  from The Guardian, and a piece from Gillian Nicol for a-n. 

SOTA12 also had an accompanying blog, which can be read here. There will be audio and video from the conference posted in due course - we'll link to it when it's available.

Craft in an Age of Change, BOP's survey of the contemporary craft sector, published

BOP Consulting's major piece of research into the contemporary craft sector, Craft in an Age of Change, has been published today (top item). Commissioned by the Crafts Council, Creative Scotland, the Arts Council of Wales and Craft Northern Ireland, it is the first big survey of the sector for more than five years, and is the first to be carried out simultaneously across the four nations of the UK.

BOP has produced a main report for the UK as a whole, together with separate summaries for each of the four nations (England's can be reached via the link above; see them for Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales). The press release gives more details. Among the comments from the partners is this one from Rosy Greenlees, Executive Director of the Crafts Council.

This is an extremely significant survey – it gives us an overview of the sector at a time of unprecedented change. It will be of use to those arguing the case for the economic and social benefit of craft – and to individual makers proving a useful tool in planning their future.

 

 

 

John Howkins on creativity: how to help it, how to kill it

John Howkins is a BOP associate and the author of the acclaimed The Creative Economy. Earlier this month he gave a lecture at Ciy University in London, entitled "Creativity: How to Help It, How to Kill It. Five Ideas on Creative Thinking in Britain and China via Mulholland Drive". The lecture has now been released as a podcast by City. It can be watched on iTunes U here (top item), while non-iTunes users can find it here.    

Dave O'Brien: Measuring the Value of Culture one year on

Dr David O’Brien (now of City University) was the first fellow on the DCMS’s Measuring the Value of Culture programme. Thirteen months ago, his report on his research (also called Measuring the Value of Culture) was published. Here he reflects on the origins of the report and where he thinks the debate is going.

The Measuring the Value of Culture programme at the DCMS grew out of a range of trends and contexts. To name just a few:

• DCMS had recognised the need to make sure their decision-making process was clearer and more transparent and used evidence in a more effective way

• There was already a large scale programme underway to better understand evidence within the cultural sector (the CASE programme)

• Given the backdrop of ongoing financial crisis, there was a recognition that the process of comprehensive spending reviews would be difficult for the cultural sector without robust ways to make the case for cultural funding.

My work concentrated on a literature review on methods of measurement used across Whitehall. The main focus was using the Treasury's guidelines on policy appraisal and evaluation, the Green Book, to think about which methods would best fit those guidelines. I discovered there were valuable comparisons with transport, environment and health departments, which had all faced the same dilemmas and debates about how best to measure value within their respective policy areas. My research recommended that for central government's approaches to cultural policy it was most appropriate to use methods of measurement that were recognised by the Green Book. Primarily those methods are economic valuation techniques such as preference based and wellbeing based techniques, which help decision makers to price the costs and benefits of potential policies.

This is a controversial idea, particularly if you think culture is an area that defies measurement, one which should not be subject to the kind of processes that Treasury has tried to embed in other areas of Whitehall. Even using the phrase ‘economic valuation’ tends to cause suspicion, given the chequered history of the use of other forms of economics, particularly economic impact studies, by the cultural sector.

However, a year on from the report, I think that Measuring Cultural Value should be seen as an opportunity, rather than a threat to the cultural sector. As Phase Two of the project is asking - what other ways of valuing are there? What other measures would we like to see?

I think we’re at the start of what could be a vital debate that might go far beyond the cultural sector itself. We need to seriously discuss the nature, usefulness and limits of economic valuation and economics as a discipline. The cultural sector, with its stress on the possibilities offered by artistic and cultural experiences, can show us what a vision of the good society might look like. It might then show us how economics could fit into this vision. I hope the next year of the Measuring the Value of Culture programme will see dialogue between Whitehall’s measures and the cultural sector’s vision, dialogue which will benefit both the participants in the debate and, more widely, contemporary social life.

Understanding the audience for London fringe theatre

iTrend Research and OffWestEnd.com have just published what they say is the first major study of the audience for London fringe and 'off-West End' theatre. The survey, which was conducted online in the second half of November 2011, attracted 5,500 responses. This method may have skewed some of the results - there are a number of questions asking about use of the internet and social media, for instance - but the findings are interesting, all the same. They suggest that among fringe theatre-goers:

• 45% attend Fringe and Off West End productions at least once a month

• Most tickets are purchased considerably in advance, with half of tickets being purchased when they first go on sale or approximately one month in advance

• Theatregoers are most often influenced by what production is being performed, the writer, director, or performers (75-84%)

• New writings were slightly preferred (62%) over revivals (51%)

• 90% also attend West End productions

• Whilst 42% say that the Olympics will not affect their theatre-going habits, 34% say they will wait until nearer the time to decide

 

Making the case for libraries: evidence to the CMS Committee

The Culture, Media and Sport Committee of the House of Commons has set up an inquiry into library closures. (We blogged about it here.) The Committee invited interested parties to submit their thoughts, and this week the submissions were published.  

The PDF containing all 130 responses is over 600 pages long. We have picked out a number of the more interesting/important ones below. 

The Reading Agency

Leicestershire County Council 

Arts Council England

Local Government Association

The responses vary considerably, but almost all of them stress the value of libraries. As Leicestershire County Council puts it:

Libraries help shape the community and make it strong. They provide one of the few free community spaces for people to meet, share ideas, be creative, learn and be digitally active. Removal of such a facility would have a significant impact on those most vulnerable in society. 

 

Making a success of 'pop-up' projects

'Pop-up' projects have become increasingly common in Britain, as the recession leads to more vacant retail premises and as artists become increasingly confident in using such spaces. Written by Dan Thompson for the Empty Shops Network, Pop-Up People is a short-ish report looking at a number of cases of interesting culture-led initiatives in places such as Leeds, Brixton, Rotterdam and Bedford. 

Does Orkney's rich cultural life have lessons for the wider world?

BOP is currently working on an economic impact assessment for St Magnus International Festival in Orkney. The festival is just one part of the rich cultural life of the islands, which is even more striking given that Orkney is home to just 20,000 people.

Last year Highlands and Islands Enterprise commissioned the arts consultant, François Matarasso, to examine the islands' culture in more depth. The resulting report, called Stories and Fables, is rather unusual in style, combining a straightforward description of the levels and type of cultural activity with more discursive reflections on Orkney life. Matarasso worries that the culture of Orkney is under threat from the tough economic climate and the departure from the scene (through retirement or death) of many of the key figures who have driven developments over the last 30 years. Nevertheless, he believes a talented new generation is coming through. 

Matarasso goes on to identify ten principles underpinning Orkney's success which have wider application. They include:

• Leadership with a clear vision 
• Demonstrating value 
• A sustainable economic model 
• Valuing volunteers
• Open, democratic governance

A day to celebrate Britain's libraries

Tomorrow (4 February) is the first National Libraries Day. Dozens of events are being held in libraries across the country. The Day has been prompted by the wave of proposed cuts to library services, and is supported by the likes of the Booktrust, the Reading Agency and the Society of Authors. As part of the project, 23 writers, ranging from Alan Bennett, Susan Hill and Zadie Smith to Caitlin Moran and Nicky Wire, have contributed pieces to The Library Book. 

The Culture Editor of Channel 4 News, Matthew Cain, has more on National Libraries Day below. He also talks about the spectacular new Library of Birmingham, for which BOP has carried out research. 

   

Defending museums from Charles Saatchi's criticisms

Charles Saatchi has attacked the practice of charging for exhibitions at publicly-funded museums and galleries. While museums always need to think about why they do things in a given way, and be open to change and innovation, we felt some of Saatchi's criticisms were wide of the mark. Alex Homfray, who leads BOP’s work in this area, offers some counterpoints.

Saatchi writes: Even London's leading museums, admirable in so many ways, only earn about 7% of their annual costs from ticket sales… why bother?

We say: Sustainable museum and gallery business plans are based on multiple income streams: admissions, retail, catering, events, licensing, and so on. Each of these streams can yield millions of pounds, making a worthwhile contribution to the total income base. A mix of income sources is more resilient to changes in spending patterns.

Saatchi writes: If [major retrospectives] had open admission, sales of catalogues, posters, keyrings, notepads, calendars, tea towels and other knick-knacks, would surely have doubled, tripled, or even quadrupled.

We say: Free entry is correlated with higher spend, though not in our experience to anything like the degree Saatchi suggests. Retailing potential varies enormously between shows. How do you 'merchandise' Jeremy Deller, for instance? 

Saatchi writes: If museums weren't featherbedded by state funding… they would discover income from sponsors would be easier to attract.

We say: Most major institutions and exhibitions already attract business sponsorship - Tate lists ten exhibition partners on its website. But, contrary to Saatchi’s views, business contributions to the arts are dropping fast, more than any other revenue stream.

Saatchi writes: One of the drawbacks of heavily attended exhibitions is that visitors feel short-changed by the crowds.

We say: Overcrowding of temporary exhibition galleries is indeed an issue. Demand for blockbuster shows like Leonardo at the National Gallery greatly exceeds capacity, and paid ticketing is the most effective method to control visitor numbers and flow.

Saatchi writes: Museums would find that if they stay open until 10pm, a lot of overcrowding evaporates.

We say: Late openings are enjoyable but need careful modelling for each venue and its audience. As Saatchi acknowledges, his gallery’s audience is younger so his model may not transfer so well elsewhere. And, of course, late openings increase staff and premises costs.

BFI statistics show 2011 a record-breaking year for British film

The BFI (British Film Institute) - a BOP client - has released new figures showing that British cinema broke a number of records in 2011, despite the tough economic climate. Gross box office broke through the £1bn barrier for the first time, reaching £1.04bn, a rise of 5% on 2010. Part of this increase was due to an exceptionally strong performance from British independent films, which recorded their largest ever share (13.5%) of the overall market.

Meanwhile, total investment in UK-based film production reached £1.26 bn in 2011, another new record, although the actual number of films produced declined.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 was easily the most popular film of the year, taking over £73m at the UK and Ireland box office. In second and third places were two British independents: The King's Speech and The Inbetweeners Movie, both of which took over £45m.  

BOP's Callum Lee on London's cultural life

In addition to his occasional posts on this blog, BOP consultant Callum Lee also writes short pieces for 2010lab.tv, a pan-European cultural website. These mostly focus on aspects of London's arts and culture scene. Here are a few of his recent articles:

• Hyper-local radio in London Fields
• A Room for London on the roof of the Southbank Centre
• The emergence of a creative community in Camberwell
• Railway arches as creative venues

The website, which has English- and German-language versions is well worth exploring.

Global digital music sales accelerate to $5.2bn

The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) has released its annual study of trends in digital music: IFPI Digital Music Report 2012. The press release has links to the full report and a key facts and figures summary. (We linked to the 2011 report here.) 

This year's trends are broadly positive. IFPI reckons global digital music sales grew by 8% last year, to $5.2bn, compared with a 5% increase in 2010. This is the first year since IFPI began recording this data in 2004 that the rate has accelerated year-on-year. In the United States (and South Korea), digital revenues now exceed those from physical sales. The biggest digital music services such as iTunes and  Spotify are also spreading rapidly, with operations in 58 countries in 2011, versus 23 in 2010.

Nevertheless, piracy continues to be an issue, and not just in music - the IFPI quotes an estimate  that 60 per cent of e-book downloads in Germany are illegal.

Skillset's recommendations for boosting skills and talent endorsed by Creative Industries Council

Earlier this year the Creative Industries Council asked Skillset, the sector skills council responsible for the creative media industries, to lead its skills working group and to consult with the creative sector to help it realise its growth potential. This week the report Skillset produced was endorsed by the Council. (BOP worked with the group and helped to compile the evidence base on which the report draws.)

Skillset identified eight cross-cutting challenges for the creative industries, from industry ownership of investment in skills, to the fusion of creative and technical disciplines in education and the need to cut red tape for businesses employing freelancers. From these, it made 17 recommendations. They include:

• Create an online professional learning network for employers and individuals, implement sector-wide management and leadership programmes and establish virtual boards of experienced professionals to provide support and guidance to start-ups and small creative companies.

• Reform the ICT syllabus in schools. Computer science, arts and/or a creative subject (music, film, media, and photography) should be included in the National Curriculum as core subjects, and also as options within the English Baccalaureate.

• Improve the quality of industry internships, with employers not just complying with legislation but also working with trade unions, employee representative groups and Government to challenge poor working practices and champion the principles of fair access to the sector.

• Improve the national account system for the Creative Industries by working with the Office for National Statistics to shape the methodology for data collection; reduce duplication, identify knowledge gaps and drive up the quality of the evidence base.

The Culture Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, described the report thus:

This is an excellent report. It gives us a clear picture of the issues we face in making sure that those working in our creative industries have the skills needed to drive growth. We need to do all we can to develop the talent in our creative businesses. I urge all involved in the creative industries to take these recommendations on board.

 

Centre for Cities publish their Cities Outlook 2012 report

The think tank Centre for Cities launched its Cities Outlook 2012 report at what was, by their high standards, a slightly shambolic event at City Hall in London on Monday. (We blogged about the 2011 report here.) Among the speakers was Greg Clark, the minister for cities, who affirmed his commitment to elected mayors and the City Deals initiative. (The text of his speech can be found here.)  

While all cities have seen unemployment rise since 2008, the report suggests the North-South divide seems to be growing wider again, as public sector job cuts hit Northern cities harder. The dominance of London and the smaller cities in the South East around it - Milton Keynes, Reading, Cambridge - is evident in almost every measure the Centre looks at, though the CfC argues this is driven more by industrial structure than geography: Southern cities tend to have more knowledge-intensive jobs, which have been less affected by the recession. Among the 'core cities', however, only Bristol has an employment rate above the national average.        

Renaissance major partner museums announced

Arts Council England yesterday named the 16 organisations which are to become its Renaissance Major Partners for museum services. The list (see below) has generally been well-received; see, for instance, Maurice Davies of the Museums Association here. There were, inevitably, some which missed out. Perhaps the most notable was Museums Sheffield, which reacted angrily to the news.The successful applicants were:

• Beamish and Bowes Museum
• Birmingham Museums Trust (Birmingham City Council, Thinktank)
• Bristol City Council
• Cumbria Museums Consortium (Tullie House, Wordsworth Trust, Lakeland Arts Trust)
• Horniman Museum and Gardens
• Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust
• Leeds Museums and Galleries
• Manchester Partnership (Manchester City Galleries, Manchester Museum, Whitworth Art Gallery)
• Museum of London
• Norfolk Museums and Archaeology Service
• Oxford University Museums and Oxfordshire County Museums Service
• Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter and Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery
• Royal Pavilion and Museums, Brighton and Hove
• Tyne and Wear Archives and Museums
• University of Cambridge Museums
• York Museums Trust

 

Turning inwards, going backwards: the UK's new student immigration rules

Tom Campbell is a BOP associate and the former cultural strategy manager for the Mayor of London. In this guest post he argues that the creative sector needs to pay much more attention to the imminent changes in student visa rules.   

The controversies over the government’s changes to the funding of higher education (HE) and the introduction of variable tuition fees have meant that the creative sector has so far paid little attention to another, arguably more sinister, threat. It has long been recognised that one of the great strengths of the UK’s creative economy has been its HE sector – its specialist universities, art and design colleges and conservatoires. It is to these institutions that some of the most talented individuals in the world have flocked, studying and researching in creative disciplines ranging from computer animation to jewellery design. London’s HE institutions alone currently have some 100,000 overseas students, equivalent to around £2bn a year in export earnings.

All of this is now under threat from new Home Office immigration regulations. As of April this year, new rules will end the right of non-EU students to stay on and work after completing their studies. Previously, students were automatically eligible to apply for a two-year work visa. From April, they will instead have to return as soon as they have completed their studies, taking their talents, intellectual property and entrepreneurial energies with them.

It matters little if these reforms have been made willingly or, as many suspect, by reluctant government ministers fearful of colleagues on the backbenches. Either way, the consequences are likely to be dire. Universities themselves, trying to attract students in an ever more competitive global market, fear a large drop in overseas applications. Those who do still come will no longer be able to stay and apply their talents in a commercial environment to the benefit of the UK. Nor will they be able to establish exactly the kinds of business relationships that UK firms need if they are to prosper in overseas markets. Instead, all of those designers, architects, computer scientists and film-makers will be immediately going back to North America, China, India, Brazil and elsewhere to develop their careers, establish world-beating firms and boost their domestic economies.

For London in particular, a city whose wealth is partly based on successive waves of immigrants and which claims to be the pre-eminent world creative capital, it is hard to think of a policy more likely to bleed it of talent and enterprise. And for a government with much-vaunted ambitions for re-balancing the national economy and growing through international markets and knowledge-intensive sectors, the new immigration rules are not just a glaring instance of incoherence, but a senseless and damaging own goal.

Surveying the public art sector in England

ixia, which describes itself as England's public art think tank, has just published its first survey of the public art sector in England (while responses were received from the other nations of the UK, they were too few for the results to be statistically robust). Almost 700 people took part, of whom around 500 worked directly in the sector, whether as artists, consultants or in local government.

As ixia acknowledges, the sector is a fragmented one, which makes this survey particularly useful. The respondents believed that public art's most important role is in shaping national and regional identity. Among the survey's other findings:

• In England, during 2010-11, there was an active and core public art sector of at least 1,250 people in a market worth at least £56m

• The public art sector is largely driven by private sector money aligned to public sector policy. ixia estimates that 80% of public art funding can be linked to public art policies within local authorities and the regeneration, health and education sectors

• The average cost of a public art project commissioned by a local authority, or via the regeneration, health and education sectors is approximately £73,000

• Many artists are optimistic about the future, but those workers closer to funding sources are much more pessimistic, predicting a fall of around 40% in the overall size of the market during 2011-12

• There are approximately 500 artists working in public art in England, with around 40% earning less than £10,000 last year

Measuring cultural value (again)

Dr Claire Donovan of Brunel University has recently been appointed as the second fellow on the DCMS/AHRC/ESRC programme on measuring cultural value. She is conducting Phase 2 of the project, following on from Dr Dave O'Brien (now of City University), whose Phase 1 report we blogged about last year.

The debate over measuring cultural value is well-trodden ground, and it remains to be seen if Dr Donovan, whose academic background is in the sociology of knowledge, will be able to add much original insight. One interesting step she has taken, though, is to launch an interactive blog on the DCMS's website, called Priceless?, to encourage people in the cultural sector to contribute their own thoughts. It will run for 12 weeks, with eight themed discussions. Some notable figures from the sector have already picked up the gauntlet, including Nick Ewbank and Gayle McPherson. Robert Hewison too has chipped in with these rather tart comments:

Welcome to the Valuing Culture debate, which began in 2003 when the then Secretary of State for Culture, Tessa Jowell, attended a conference organised by the National Theatre, the National Gallery, Demos and AEA Associates.

I wonder if you are hoping to reinvent the wheel ... It is excellent to have another contributor to the field, but it may difficult to get very far when Phase One of your project has already sold the pass by saying that the only way forward is by the Treasury Green Book.

This post on the LSE Impact of Social Sciences blog gives a taste of Donovan's style.

 

How to future proof your arts organisation

Last Friday, Alex Homfray from BOP Consulting took part in an live webchat for the Guardian Culture Professionals Network (see this earlier blogpost). Apart from Alex, the participants were Mark Robinson of Thinking Practice, Sarah Thelwall of MyCake, Andrew Erskine of Tom Fleming Creative Consultancy and Keith Evans of Cida Co. Their collective wisdom has been written up by Matthew Caines in this Guardian article. 

One comment Alex made in the webchat which wasn't included in the article was his summing-up of some of the key steps in future proofing:

Join an unfamiliar network. Grow to love data. Benchmark yourself. What do your audiences really want? Audit your assets and maximise their income potential. Incentivise entrepreneurialism for all your staff. Property developers and High Street landlords can be your friends.  

Understanding the changing environment for arts and culture fundraising

We missed this when it came out last year, but the DCMS's CASE programme has published a qualitative study it commissioned from GfK NOP Social Research looking at fundraising activity in arts, culture, heritage and sport. The report is based on 17 case studies, which included the SAGE Gateshead, Historic Royal Palaces, the Museum of East Anglian Life and Salcombe Rugby Club. It found the financial crisis had induced changes in donor behaviour:    

Donors were thought to have become more exacting in their expectations, with an increased requirement for tangible and measurable outcomes. This in turn created a new requirement for organisations to demonstrate sound business planning and financial management, and an ability to generate benefits for potential donors. Some had become practiced in this; while for others the new environment required a culture shift, as they had previously relied heavily upon strong personal relationships with their major funders.

Jim Barratt: at last, a film policy review that puts the audience first

Today's guest blogger, Jim Barratt, was Head of Research & Statistics at the UK Film Council from 2003 to 2006, and is the author of Bad Taste, a book about Peter Jackson’s debut film. He writes an occasional blog about film business research at www.biggerpictureresearch.com, where you can read his further thoughts on the Film Policy Review Panel’s proposals.

‘[A] key goal of public policy for film should be to connect the widest possible range of audiences throughout the UK with the broadest and richest range of British films and films from around the world.’ Recommendation 1.

A  press release issued last week by Downing Street advised that the Film Policy Review Panel, led by former Culture Secretary Lord Smith, was expected to recommend a ‘rebalancing’ of Lottery funding in support of more crowd pleasing, mainstream British films.

In the absence of the Panel’s full report (published yesterday), this heavily spun story drew sharp intakes of breath across the film sector. Success in the independent film business, assuming we could all agree a definition (not as easy as you might think), is almost as elusive as the Higgs Boson. Only the most naive commentator would suggest reducing film policy to the selective backing of box office winners, which would mark both a poverty of ambition and a misunderstanding of the way the business works.

Fortunately, in this case the main feature did not live down to the dim promise of the trailer. Because we can now read in full the fruits of the Panel’s deliberations, and it’s a relief to find proposals of genuine merit and substance.

While much in the report will be familiar to anyone acquainted with UK Film Council era strategising, the report’s framing device, which places audiences at the centre of public policy, is a welcome departure. Unusually for a film policy document you have to wait until chapter four to find the first references to production funding (of mainstream films or otherwise). Compare that with, say, the UK Film Council’s last three-year plan, which leads with production funding as its primary ‘core activity’.

In contrast, the first three chapters of today’s report take in the audience, new technology and theatrical exhibition; topics usually found much lower down the billing. Significantly, the opening chapter addresses the goal of audience development from the perspectives of ‘education, access and choice’, aligning public policy with the need ‘to maximise audience access to films of every kind throughout the UK’.

This reorientation of film policy, placing audiences at its heart, is the most refreshing feature of the Panel’s approach, because for too long policy interventions have targeted upstream development and production activity on the assumption that benefits will flow naturally downstream to audiences. But this is faulty logic.

In truth, the anticipation (and cultivation) of audience taste and predilection is active at every stage in the independent film value chain, from an individual film’s inception to its marketing and subsequent exploitation. And in financial terms, revenues only begin to flow back along the links of the chain once paying customers (i.e. audiences) become involved.

It remains to be seen whether this shift in emphasis is merely rhetorical or is evidence of something deeper (and we still have to await the Government’s official response), but it’s a positive start. In filmland the audience is king, and the Film Policy Review Panel’s report is the opening proclamation of a timely Restoration movement.

 

UK arts' performance holding up, but some ominous trends emerging

Late last year, the National Campaign for the Arts (NCA) released the first UK Arts Index. At that time, access to the full report was confined to NCA members, but the NCA has just made the report available to a general readership.

Compiled with the help of Audiences London and Audiences UK, the index aims to be an annual 'health-check' for the arts in Britain. It uses 20 indicators, including funding, employment, donations and engagement, and finds that the overall health of the sector stayed relatively steady from 2007/08 to 2009/10. Both business and individual contributions fell significantly over that time (by 17% and 13% respectively), but this was offset by increases in Lottery funding programmes.

However, the report also found large and growing gaps between some of the English regions: for instance, giving by individuals varied from an average of £36.36 per person a year in London to just 53p in the East Midlands. At the 'nations' level, Scotland's score fell quite sharply compared to the other three nations. 

BOP Consulting on expert panel for Guardian webchat today

The Guardian Culture Professionals network is a relatively new initiative by the newspaper. Aimed at the arts community, it aims to bring together advice and best practice from across the sector, and often has interesting articles on aspects of the arts business.

It has recently started doing weekly live webchats on arts-related themes. Alex Homfray of BOP will be one of this week's panel of experts, discussing: Beyond the five-year plan: future proofing your arts organisation. The chat runs from 12 noon to 2pm - more details here. If you've got questions for Alex, please join in!

 

 

2012: The Year of Creative Scotland

2012 has been designated the Year of Creative Scotland by the Scottish Government. The year is one of  a series of 'focus years' running to 2013 which build on the perceived success of Homecoming in 2009. The programme is being billed as:

A chance to spotlight, celebrate and promote Scotland’s cultural and creative strengths on a world stage, and to position Scotland as one of the world’s most creative nations to audiences at home and across the world.

Some £6.5m of National Lottery money will be spent of a range of events, including the Creative Place awards, honouring creativity in smaller communities, and  a celebration of contemporary Scottish printmaking, to be held at Traquair House in the summer.

Meanwhile it is also an important year for Creative Scotland the organisation. It is undertaking a number of sector reviews - those for theatre and music have already been commissioned - to help it understand its sectors better and to guide its future investment plans. 

 

Arts Council-funded organisations: holding their own in challenging times

At the end of last year the Arts Council released an analysis of the 2010/11 returns of 829 of its 843 Regularly Funded Organisations. The report inludes a wealth of data and suggests that the sector is holding its own in these challenging economic times. Among its findings: 

• London-based organisations (some of which have national remits) dominated the portfolio. They received 50 per cent of the total Arts Council England subsidy, put on 29 per cent of the total number of activities and reached 52 per cent of the total audience.

• Job numbers were holding up: permanent staff increased by 1%, contractual staff by 3%, and volunteers by 18% on the previous year. 17% of staff were from Black or minority ethnic backgrounds, a small decline on the previous year, while the proportion of disabled staff remained at 2%.

• Earned income and local authority increased from 2009/10 by 6%  and 3% respectively. Other public subsidy increased by 20% while Arts Council England subsidy increased by 2%.

The rise and rise of the video game

The video game industry has become one of the most lucrative sectors of the entertainment business. As this report from the Economist points out, its $56bn of sales in 2010 were twice those of the recorded music industry, and a quarter more than the magazine industry. One game, Call of Duty: Black Ops, achieved sales of $650m in just five days. 

Reading this report reminded us of this excellent article by John Lanchester in the London Review of Books from 2009, in which he discusses video games' lack of visibility in the wider culture:

There is no other medium that produces so pure a cultural segregation as video games, so clean-cut a division between the audience and the non-audience. Books, films, TV, dance, theatre, music, painting, photography, sculpture, all have publics which either are or aren’t interested in them, but at least know that these forms exist ... They are all part of our current cultural discourse. Video games aren’t. Video games have people who play them, and a wider public for whom they simply don’t exist.

Lanchester goes on to discuss some of the complexity and artistry found in games, including a profile of the Walt Disney of video games, Shigeru Miyamoto.

 

Creating great places in difficult times

The Royal Town Planning Institute's Scottish branch recently published three very short papers looking at how planners can help to 'create great places in difficult times'. Experts were brought together at a series of dinners, and each paper summarises the subsequent discussion. While they have a Scottish focus, many of the points raised have wider applications. The papers are:

Adding Value and Demonstrating Vision 

Supporting Delivery and Harnessing Resources

Developing Skills and Knowledge

European Capitals of Culture 2012: Maribor and Guimarães

This year's European Capitals of Cultures are Maribor in Slovenia and Guimarães in Portugal. Maribor has around 160,000 inhabitants, and has chosen the theme of Pure Energy for its year (arguing that creativity + heritage + education + research + digital literacy + cultural tourism + economy + ecology = pure energy). It hopes the year will help the sustainable development of the wider eastern Slovenia region. More details can be found here.

Guimarães, a city of 50,000 poeple, also has ambitions to use culture to encourage wider economic development (in northern Portugal in its case), but has chosen to build its year around three 'values': City, Citizenship and Participation, and the European dimension. Their website can be found here.