Arts and creativity worth billions

SCOTLAND’S arts and creative industries contribute £3.2 billion to the country’s economy and directly create 84,000 jobs, according to a new report.

The figure is more than double the 34,000 jobs that the UK Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) assigned to Scotland’s creative industries in a 2010 survey, which put the UK total at nearly 600,000 jobs.

Edinburgh and Glasgow between them account for 40 per cent of employment in the sector, the report found.

The report has “extended and amended” DCMS definitions to more accurately reflect Scotland’s creative scene, it says.

If indirect spending is added, the total value of the creative economy, from publishing to computer games, runs to £6.3bn, or about 130,000 jobs, says the Economic Contribute Study.

The chief executive of Creative Scotland – which put a controversial funding revamp on hold this month after furious criticism – welcomed the findings yesterday, saying they showed the country “thrives on creativity”.

“Scotland’s talent is recognised worldwide and valued at home for high-quality work and the joy that a vibrant cultural life bring,” Andrew Dixon said. “For the first time, the impact that Scotland’s arts and creative industries has on the nation’s economic wellbeing can now be set alongside these other achievements.”

Leading cultural industries consultant, Christine Hamilton, said: “It’s a substantial piece of work that has to be taken seriously. Its usefulness is that it shows that culture has an economic return, but the reason for putting any public money into culture has to be for making a cultural return.”

Putting a figure on cultural economies can be a difficult exercise. While the Scotland-based author JK Rowling is a global publishing phenomenon, her books have been published from London and films of them made in Hollywood.

The El Sistema project in Stirling, where music teaching methods developed with Venezuelan children have been deployed in one of Scotland’s most economically deprived estates, has enabled hundreds of children to take part in orchestral music, but is not usually championed as an economic investment.

The Scottish figures look at 16 categories rather than 13 with the DCMS. They include the craft sector, heritage and museums, and textiles, seen as vitally important to a Scottish measure and accounting for thousands of jobs. The report makes the case that photographic processing is now a creative industry, and parts of the software industry should be kept that the DCMS figures leave out.

Beyond the 84,000 direct jobs, another 21,000 people are working in a “creative capacity” in self-employment or other jobs, it suggests. But others working freelance on in “micro-businesses” may boost the figures even further.

The software and electronic publishing sector is said to be worth £940 million, employing more than 19,000 people. By contrast, the performing arts are estimated to be worth £90m, directly employing 4,700 people.

There are said to be 12,000 “business units”, with a third in the software industry. Architecture employs over 6,000 people with an estimated value added of £250m and visual arts just 800 people, worth about £30m. The writing and publishing sector is valued at £810m with 16,400 employees.