The CBI released a special report on the creative industries last week, Creating Growth. It says:
The creative industries contribute around 6-8% of UK output and produce exports totalling £16bn every year. They produce not only well-known cultural and entertainment products, but employ nearly two million people - including 800,000 in related industries.
Hurray, we cry. And it goes on to call on the Coalition government to adopt a coherent strategy for this sector. There is, of course, the obligatory CBI harumphing about IP and copyright, deploring the fact that increasing piracy puts off potential investors, but another point they make is:
Government policy should reflect the range of skills required by creative businesses and ensure these are delivered through secondary and higher education.
This is surely a biggie. Arts education is currently facing significant cuts - cuts that started under the Labour administion and which have deepened under the new Coalition government. The University of the Arts London, are now staring at an across the board 6% budget cut. The London arts colleges play a significant part in the London Design Festival each year. Take the s_pavilion featured above. That is the work of students from the Chelsea College of Arts and Design, a structure made from 200 of the sponsor Speedo's discarded swimsuits. There's barely a designer working in Britain, with the exception of Tom Dixon, who didn't cut their teeth somewhere in the UK art school system; from the music industry, to graphic design, computer gaming, architecture and product design, the arts education has provided the UK with an edginess other countries lack.
In the past, the CBI has been well known for trashing the state of the British education system. The organisation now saying that we need better higher education is the same one that argued in its September 2009 report Stronger Together Businesses and universities in turbulent times report for science, technology, engineering and maths to be strengthened - with absolutely no mention of arts education at all. It has consistently argued for a more rigid curriculum at the expense of a more edgy, open-ended education. Their Higher Education report from May this year, again, makes no mention of the arts. Despite its spirited defence of the creative industries, the CBI has never seemed to grasp that the reason we're world leaders is because we have that edge. You can't have a creative industry without creativity. The CBI's report on the creative industries might be more credible if it recognised where so much British creativity actually came from.
Picture: Chelsea College of Art & Design's s_pavilion, made from 200 unusable Speedo swimsuits
