28 February 2020

Insights from Creative Industries Champions

The Policy and Evidence Centre (PEC), led by nesta as part of the Creative Industries Clusters Programme, has just published a report on how policymakers can support local growth in creative industries.

The report addressed the following questions.

• What does success in the creative industries look like in your geographical area?
• Which local interventions have been successful in unlocking this growth and which have not?
• What additional local interventions are needed?

Some of the key issues raised by the report are:

• Local variations in support
• Lack of signposting and business support
• Access to funding is laborious and slow
• Space to work at central location is minimal

The panel of Industry Champions also made a list of recommendations, which are explored more in detailed in the report.

• More work needs to be done on signposting to creative businesses the support that is locally available to them
• Local councils and LEPs (in England) should simplify their application procedures
• Local governments should review their procurement practices to remove impediments for small creative businesses
• Local (and central) government should consider where local infrastructure restrictions are likely to be harming business growth, not just infrastructures in travelling to London

You can see report here.