BOP Consulting's Culture and Creative Industries Blog

Measuring the economic benefits of the arts in criminal justice

Last month, the Arts Alliance published a report it commissioned from New Philanthropy Capital (NPC), looking at three arts charities that work in the criminal justice sector.

Unlocking Value reviewed the activities of Clean Break, Only Connect and Unitas, and found that all three were making significant contributions to reducing re-offending rates, and hence to saving taxpayers' money. While the cost-benefit analysis that NPC conducted did not amount to a full-scale evaluation of each charity, it was nevertheless able to estimate that Only Connect's activities, for example, were saving the taxpayer £3.2m over six years.

Understanding the benefits of heritage volunteering

Earlier this month, the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) published the third and final year of BOP’s research into the social impact of volunteering in the heritage sector. A link to the first (pilot) and second year reports can be found in this blogpost. In the third year the research sought in particular to answer two outstanding research questions:

• Is there something special about volunteering in heritage activities that brings about different outcomes compared with other types of volunteering

• Are volunteers’ demographics determining the positive outcomes that we have captured?

In order to tackle these issues, we added to new elements to the research mix: a control group of volunteers from Oxfam; and an econometric analysis of volunteering and its relationship with mental health, using the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS). (Some of these findings were discussed in last Friday's post.) We found, among other things:

HLF volunteers continue to report levels of mental health and well-being that are far higher than for the general population, or for the general volunteering population, particularly with regard to their ability to ‘play a useful part in things’ ... HLF volunteers make (modest) skill gains in many areas as a result of their participation in HLF-funded projects. Greater numbers of volunteers report using these skills in other areas of their life than in previous years, and they are using them differently: predominantly within their workplace and in further community engagement.

The econometric analysis found that:

• Younger volunteers are most likely to make the greatest improvements in skills development (compared with older volunteers)

• Those without a degree are more likely to experience gains in a number of the areas of mental health and well-being than those with degrees

• Unemployed volunteers (rather than employed or retired people) are most likely to report that their volunteering has contributed to them subsequently taking a course.

We are proud of the work that we have undertaken over the three years for this project, as is our client. Here’s Gareth Maeer, the HLF’s Head of Research and Evaluation:

Since we started this work the well-being issue, in particular, has really caught on – at the highest political level. Culture, heritage and volunteering are so clearly of great importance to this debate. But it is a debate that is using strong social science research, so the research we produce as a sector needs to be at that level.

We think the work the BOP team has done for us is of the highest standards and will, I’m sure, find its way into that wider policy discussion. The BOP researchers very successfully mixed traditional qualitative findings with the newer statistical modelling approach, in a way that provides us with a far more meaningful set of results than we’ve achieved through similar research in the past.

Over the coming months, both BOP and the HLF will work to disseminate the research more widely. In the meantime, if you would like to know more about how we could help you to better understand the social impacts of your programmes or organisation, or have a research idea that you would like to explore as a jointly-funded venture, please ring our Head of Research, Richard Naylor, on 0207 307 3090 or email him at contact@bop.co.uk.

 

National Plan for Music Education published

The Department for Education and the DCMS have jointly published the National Plan for Music Education, which sets out the future shape of music education in England. It draws on the Henley Review of Music Education, which we have discussed before.

The main change proposed by the Plan is that local authority music services will be replaced by a series of 'hubs' (an idea suggested by Henley). These hubs can cover one or more local authority area, and professional orchestras and ensembles will be involved in their local hub. The hubs' funding will be adminstered by Arts Council England. The overall budget for music education will drop, although some programmes, such as In Harmony, will receive extra support. 

The Plan has been broadly welcomed by the sector, though with some reservations  - see this piece in the Guardian, for instance.

Disentangling the relationship between volunteering and mental health

In July BOP consultant Cristina Rosemberg spoke at the OECD in Paris about BOP's research into volunteering and mental health. Here, she gives more details of her findings: 

The social sciences literature has uncovered evidence of a positive correlation between volunteering and well-being before. Examples include Li and Ferraro, who found that formal volunteering has beneficial effects on well-being, particularly on fighting depression among older people, and Helliwell and Putman, who established that civic engagement has a robust positive correlation with happiness and life satisfaction.

However, establishing and measuring the causal relationship between volunteering and mental health poses a series of methodological challenges that, if unsolved, can lead to misleading conclusions. In particular the relationship can be affected by:

• Reverse causality – do people who volunteer end up with higher levels of mental health, or do people with higher levels of mental health decide to volunteer?, and

• Self-selection – are there inherent characteristics, such as an optimistic attitude towards life, that could be explain both a higher level of mental health and the decision to volunteer?

In order to try and unpick these issues, we undertook a piece of research with the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF), as part of a larger project we were carrying out for them. We based our analysis on British Household Panel Survey (BHPS).

The econometric analysis shows that once we account for reverse causality and self-selection, volunteering still has a positive effect on mental health. The effect is statistically significant, but mild. More interestingly, volunteering seems to play a role in alleviating the potentially negative effects of difficult personal episodes. In particular, volunteering:

• increases well-being among retired people – retirement is already positively correlated with mental health, but this relationship is stronger among those who volunteer.

• decreases the negative effects of going through an episode of financial strain.

• ameliorates the otherwise negative effect of being separated, divorced or widowed – if a person is volunteering in the same year any of these these happened to her, then the negative effect of the life-event is no longer statistically significant.

If you would like to know more about this research please contact Cristina on 0207 307 3090 or email contact@bop.co.uk.  

 

Libraries sector turmoil - new Commons inquiry launched

The turmoil in Britain's libraries sector continues. Visits and book loans both fell in 2010/11, while a number of legal challenges to proposed library closures are working their way through the courts. Pro-library campaigners claimed a notable victory last week when they won a ruling forcing Somerset and Gloucestershire councils to reconsider funding cuts to the sector. Meanwhile the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee of the House of Commons, fresh from its skirmishes with the Murdochs, has just announced an inquiry into library closures in England - more details here. 

In a bid to try and find some practical solutions, the Arts Council and the Local Government Association have introduced a Libraries Development Initiative to  try and find innovative new ways of bringing arts and culture into libraries. The scheme will fund 8-10 projects.

In Scotland, things are rather different. While Scottish libraries are not immune from budget cuts, the number of visits appears to have remained steady last year, and Fiona Hyslop, the Culture secretary, has said that local library services are to be 'protected' in 2012/13. There is also a new National Library of Scotland bill, designed to modernise the governance of the country's flagship library.

 

Will new universities be part of London's Olympic legacy?

Who will take space in the Olympic media and broadcast centre after 2012? Bids have to be in by December 2nd, but a number have already been revealed. One of the largest current bids is from Loughborough University, which wants 90,000 sq ft for a postgraduate sports research facility. Loughborough also proposes a joint initiative with University College London for a large cell therapy technology and innovation centre, including incubation space.

Loughborough and UCL’s ambitions will surprise some, given the much-publicised squeeze on university finances. But BOP’s recent work with universities has suggested three drivers pushing universities to seek new outposts and enterprise projects.

• Quality of place: the need to offer paying students a desirable location puts campuses in more rural or suburban areas at a something of a disadvantage; universities will increasingly seek city centre and London bases.

• Employability: students will favour universities that have links to business and can unlock work placements and internships.

• Graduate entrepreneurship: more graduates now choose to work for themselves, encouraging universities to provide access to business support and affordable workspace after graduation.  

Add the potential for a very good deal from a grateful Olympic Park Legacy Company, and the Loughborough and UCL bids make a lot of sense.

Promoting adult participatory arts companies

A new website, Connected Culture, has just been launched to try and raise the profile of adult participatory arts. It is an initiative of the Spare Tyre theatre company, backed by Arts Council London, and aims to build a network for the sector. It is primarily London-based for now, though it intends to reach further afield. Connected Culture has three main goals:

• Encourage an exchange of ideas and practice

• Influence a wide spectrum of policy making

• Raise the profile and status of adult participatory arts.

Forum d'Avignon 2011: Investing in culture

The 2011 conference of the Forum d'Avignon was held last week, in Avignon. Under the theme of 'Investing in culture', the conference explored a number of aspects of the relationship between culture and the economy. Much material related to the conference has now been published online, including a number of reports. Among them are pieces by;

• Tera Consultants, on The impact of cultural spending

• Charles Landry, on Creativity, culture & the city: a question of interconnection

• Ernst and Young, on Intellectual Property in a digital world 

 

 

America's latest attempt to stop online piracy

The debates about how to strike a balance between the rights of creators and consumers of creative content continue to rage around the world. In the US, the proposed new Stop Online Piracy Act (which also seems to be known as the Protect-IP Act) is causing considerable controversy, as critics argue it will end up censoring the internet to protect the interests of entertainment companies. James Fallows of the Atlantic has more here, and also recommends  the video below, making the case against such a law.

  

The role of architects in the new planning framework

RIBA has issued two guides for architects to help steer them through the complexities of the Government's new planning regime. Part 1 is a guide to neighbourhood planning, Part 2 looks at getting community engagement right. RIBA believes:

Localism needs design professionals to succeed, but the quality of the places created by this new process will be dependent on their ability to appropriately engage with local people and local issues, right from the beginning, designing 'with' rather than 'for' communities. Architects already have the skills to ensure that this approach is a success, but the profession must look to actively promote these skills within the emerging planning policy context.

Making the case for cultural learning

The Cultural Learning Alliance brings together the cultural, education and youth sectors to emphasise the benefits of cultural learning. It has just issued a punchy advocacy document - ImagineNation: The Case for Cultural Learning.

The Alliance is backed by a number of funders, including BOP client the Paul Hamlyn Foundation. They have also helped fund the supporting evidence base: Key Research Findings, which makes five arguments, backed up by survey evidence. (Click the links to see more detail in each case.) 

• Learning through arts and culture improves attainment in all subjects
  
  
• Participation in structured arts activities increases cognitive abilities

• Students from low income families who take part in arts activities at school are three times more likely to get a degree
  
  
• Employability of students who study arts subjects is higher and they are more likely to stay in employment
  
  
• Students who engage in the arts at school are twice as likely to volunteer and are 20% more likely to vote as young adults

 

House of Lords debates the creative industries

Earlier this month, Baroness Bonham-Carter secured a debate in the House of Lords to 'call attention to the importance of the creative industries in the United Kingdom'. The transcript of the debate can be read here - it provides a useful overview of current debates and issues in the sector. It also has this entertaining exchange:

Earl of Glasgow: The most successful British film in Britain this year is something that I doubt any of us here will have seen, called The Inbetweeners. It is about a whole lot of young people behaving very badly. It is what is sometimes called - oh dear, I have forgotten the name now, but there is a certain type of word for that particular type of film. It tends to be all about people behaving badly. What is the word for it? I cannot remember now.

Baroness Benjamin: Anti-social?

Earl of Glasgow: No. There is a word for it. Damn it; I should have written it down on my bit of paper but I did not.

Baroness Rawlings summed up for the government, and addressed many of the points raised in the debate. Her comments on skills were particularly interesting:

My noble friend Lord Clement-Jones rightly lays emphasis on skills. In tandem with the skills working group of the [Creative Industries] council, a number of actions have been taken forward to improve skills in the digital and creative industries. These include identifying 360 science, technology, engineering and maths - STEM - ambassadors from the creative and digital industries, and encouraging graduates from the sciences, technology and maths to seek out careers in these sectors.

I have great sympathy with the worries of my noble friend Lady Bonham-Carter and of several others about not including the arts, such as music, and computer sciences in the EBacc. This is a matter for the Education Secretary, but it does not stop these subjects being taught in schools.

 

BOP Consulting on Art, Work and Urban Regeneration

On Wednesday evening BOP's senior consultant, Chris Gibbon, will be speaking at a panel discussion on Art, Work and Urban Regeneration, sponsored by the ESRC Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change (CRESC) - more details here.

The event is being held at the Brunei Gallery, SOAS, in London. His fellow panellists are Prof. Kate Oakley of City University and Dr Sarah Brouillette of Carleton University in Ottawa. Chris's presentation will draw on a paper he wrote for the Regional Studies Association's 2011 international conference earlier this year. 

BOP's consultants are experienced public speakers and are always happy to consider requests for engagements in our specialist areas of culture, creative industries and cultural place-making, and their wider connections to issues such as economic development, regeneration, education and tourism. Drop us a line at contact@bop.co.uk or ring 0207 307 3090 for more information.       

How not to run an arts capital project

The Public, an arts centre in West Bromwich, is one of the most notorious failed capital projects in the cultural sector in the last decade. The Culture, Media and Sport Committee of the House of Commons singled out the project, and Arts Council England's role in it, for particular criticism in a report issued earlier this year (see this blogpost).

Partly in response to expectations of that criticism, ACE, which contributed £31.8m to the cost of the building (up from the original £19m) with a further £4m in reveune grants, commissioned a report into the matter from the consultant, Anthony Blackstock. It has just published his report, The Public: Lessons learned by Arts Council England, here. (An act for which it deserves some credit.) A response from Alan Davey, ACE's current chief excutive can be found here.

Although Blackstock feels the CMS Committee's verdict was ill-informed in some respects, he nevertheless finds that ACE made many mistakes including:

• ACE did not have a strong enough belief in the robustness of The Public’s leadership. This was probably the main cause of the Arts Council becoming, with the other funders, the shadow promoters of the project. This in turn weakened the need for The Public’s leaders to take unambiguous responsibility for the project.
  

• Again, the records do not show that the Arts Council had sufficient confidence that the artistic and business model properly supported either the specification for the construction or the subsequent operation. Again, the Arts Council should not have confirmed its funding until it was satisfied on this point.

• Failure to secure the first two assurances led Arts Council England to compensate for those external shortcomings by overplaying its own role. The Arts Council’s critical error was to cross the line that must separate funder from developer.

• The Arts Council became so persuaded by the transformative role of the project – for art, society and the built environment – that it was prepared to override due claims of prudence. Perhaps it was seeking too far to fulfil the social agenda of the Government of the day. If this was the case then it strengthens the current Arts Council’s case for insisting on the integrity of the ‘arms-length principle’.

Is animation in Britain in trouble?

In the last twenty years animation has been something of a British creative industries success story. Yet the current situation looks gloomy. Aardman, Bristol's world-leading studio (home of Wallace and Gromit et al) warned at the weekend that it might be forced to outsource work overseas. Martin Smith of Ingenious Media, who knows the sector well, says: 

In my view animation in the UK is now down to a more or less irreducible core below which it will effectively disappear from our creative landscape as far as domestic production is concerned. Given its significant input role in other creative sectors – including TV, games, film and advertising – this is very alarming.

Animation UK, the trade body for the industry, has just published a report  by Robert Kenny and Tom Broughton which details the industry's problems. Securing the future of UK animation can be read here. The prime culprit is tax breaks for animation in other countries, which are hurting Britain's industry badly. Without government action, the authors warn, 'UK animation may soon cease to be viable'.

 

Advertising's £16bn contribution to the UK economy

The Work Foundation lauched a report last week into the economic contribution of the UK's advertising industry - it can be read here. Many of the figures in the report are derived from the research of others, notably the DCMS and McKinsey, but the Foundation estimates that when direct, indirect and induced impacts are taken into account, the industry contributed £15.6bn to the UK in 2008 (which, happily, seems to have been a particularly good year).

The report was conducted on behalf of Credos, a new-ish think-tank set up by the Advertising Association. Credos has published a number of other reports into the advertising sector, especially around children and advertising.

Jo Burns on the benefits of international cultural exchange

BOP's director, Jo Burns, recently spoke at a British Council workshop in Istanbul for emerging cultural leaders from around the world (see this earlier blogpost for more details). While she was there she was interviewed by the Council. The conversation ranged from BOP Consulting itself to Istanbul, the workshop, and the benefits of international cultural exchange. A video of that interview is posted below (NB: the sound quality is not great, so you may need to adjust your volume settings).

 

A number of other interviews were recorded with other speakers and participants - they can be accessed here. One of them is with ex-BOPper, Tamara Tatishvili, who is now the director of the Georgian National Film Center.

 

 

What Demos's 'Risky Business' gets wrong about the creative industries

Graham Hitchen is a specialist in the cultural and creative sector. He was the founding director of Creative London and is currently the chair of Creative Islington. This guest post is an edited version of an article originally published on Graham's website, Directional Thinking.

A recent pamphlet – which appears to be gaining currency among creative industry folk – seeks to argue that creative business is no more risky than other sectors of the economy. Risky Business, co-written by former Labour minister, Kitty Ussher, and Ed Vaizey’s former policy adviser, Helen Burrows, for the Demos think-tank (see this earlier blogpost), seeks to dispel a 'myth' that investing in creative industries is a high-risk activity.

As the blurb which prefaces the document states:

There is a persistent prejudice that the sector is inherently risky; that creative entrepreneurs are only in it due to their passion, not their business sense. This myth is dispelled in this pamphlet, which demonstrates that on average, creative enterprises are more likely to still be in existence after five years than other businesses.

But, sadly, this misunderstands the reality of creative business activity, in the sense that it tends to focus on certain sub-sectors where there is a more stable and consistent business model. For example, while businesses in some sectors (such as design and architecture) operate through an established model of ‘known demand’ – responding to client-need – others, notably music and film, do not. Investing in projects and, most difficult of all, businesses in these creative content sectors is a very high-risk exercise since it means investing in projects for which there is no ‘known demand’ at all.

When it comes to backing a film, a song, a band, a computer game, there is no tried-and-tested formula for knowing what will be a hit and what will be an almighty flop. Patrick McKenna, the CEO of Ingenious Media, one of Britain’s most important investors in media and entertainment companies, has written and spoken on this at some length. In his view, businesses in the creative content sectors are characterised by high sunk capital costs (to pay for making the film, the musical, the song and so on) in conditions where the demand for such products (the box office) cannot be tested in advance to give any reliable forecast of revenues. His experience suggests that the ratio of project failures to project success is as high  as 10:1.

The real risk here is that Government follows the logic of the Demos report and starts unravelling some of the positive elements put in place over recent years to support R&D and incentivise risk-taking in the creative industries. Other countries – most notably Canada – have understood the risky nature of the creative industries and have put a range of measures in place, including direct support to businesses and infrastructure support.

We need to open up the debate and challenge some of the assumptions in the Demos report to ensure that Government understands more fully the nature of creative business investment, and to help realise the huge opportunities in this key growth sector.

Measuring the impacts of festivals

Earlier this year BOP completed its major study of the economic, social, cultural, media  and environmental impacts of the Edinburgh Festivals (see this earlier blogpost). BOP consultant Ulrike Chouguley, one of the authors of the report, recently gave a presentation on the lessons of the study to a seminar held at the offices of Creative Scotland. The presentation (with audio commentary by Ulrike) can be seen below.

The academic David McGillivray was in attendance - he blogged about the event here.

 

Getting women's voices heard in and on radio

This week has seen the launch of Sound Women, a network for women working in radio. It declares that it is:

committed to raising the profile of women working in all aspects of audio, and has compiled a list of over 200 inspirational women who are happy to appear on panel discussions or take part in events.

Miranda Sawyer wrote a piece for The Observer explaining why she feels Sound Women is needed here. She is one of those responsible for Sound Women's promotional video.

 

To coincide with the launch, Skillset published a report into the status of women in the radio sector. The report, Tuning Out, is a compilation of existing material rather than new research, but shows that, among other things:

• On average, men in the industry earn more than women - £29,700 compared with £27,500.

• 25% of men in the industry have dependent children living with them but only 16% of women, suggesting that many women leave the industry as a consequence of starting a family.

• Women are more likely than men to have heard about their first job in the industry via an advertisement (32% and 26% respectively). Men tend to access jobs via more informal routes.

 

 

Arts Council England publishes its Plan for 2011-15

Arts Council England (ACE) has published its Plan 2011-15, and given details of its strategic funding programme. The Plan sets out the steps that ACE intends to take to achieve its ten-year goals. Among them are:

• We will also use arts, museums and libraries strategic funding to invest in areas where attendance and participation levels are low. We will also invest in a small number of places of greatest disadvantage to establish action research areas called creative people and places.

• We believe there is an opportunity to attract more private giving and help a wider range of organisations to benefit from it. We will introduce a match funding and capacity building programme. The scheme will support the sector’s fundraising efforts and provide an incentive for donors to give to the arts.

• With our cultural and other strategic partners, we will champion the benefits of a more diverse workforce to the arts. We expect National portfolio organisations to recruit openly and pay interns, following employment law and best practice.

The funding will provide £440m of support between 2012 and 2015. Of this money, £180m will be spent through the capital investment programme, funded by the National Lottery. ACE expects that:

the programme will be oversubscribed and will therefore prioritise investing in National portfolio organisations who can demonstrate that capital investment will increase their resilience in the long-term.

We should add that BOP has experience of helping ACE-funded bodies apply for capital grants - if you would like to know more about how we might help you and your organisation, drop us a line at contact@bop.co.uk or ring 0207 307 3090.

A slow start for Local Enterprise Partnerships

Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) were intended be the government's main vehicle for local economic development, but this report from the Centre for Cities suggests they have made a slow start. It notes that of the original 24 LEPs:

Eight have yet to have their boards recognised by government, only two have produced a long-term strategic plan and five do not have a dedicated website. In some cases, LEPs have appointed huge boards and advisory teams; the South East LEP has 43 board members and the Coventry and Warwickshire LEP has 14 associated focus groups, with at least 160 people involved.

While the report has not gone down well with some LEPs - see Teesside's response here - other commentators have broadly supported it: see, for instance, Prof. David Bailey's view. 

This week has also seen the release of the second round of Regional Growth Fund money. This DCMS press release details the projects in the tourism and cultural sectors that have received funding.