Demystifying Reports, Facts & Figures
- Rachel Wise
- Nov 4, 2024
- 5 min read
Updated: Nov 16, 2024
The maze of reports, facts and figures can be a little overwhelming, especially for smaller creative companies and individual freelancers mastering the juggling act of working within the creative industries.
For Freelancers, most relevant information can be found at https://freelancersmaketheatrework.com/
Here's a summary of a few headline facts and figures:
The budget October 2024 contained details of the government’s settlement for the DCMS.[17] It set out that the settlement provided total departmental expenditure limit (DEL) funding of £2.3bn in 2025/26 and that this was equivalent to an average annual real-terms growth rate of 2.6% from 2023/24 to 2025/26. The Treasury argued that:
This settlement prioritises support for the creative industries and funds cultural institutions and sports facilities so that they continue to be world leading.[18]
The Treasury also said there would be an expansion of the creative careers programme worth £3mn. This programme aims to raise awareness of opportunities for work in the creative economy. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6711176c386bf0964853d747/industrial-strategy-green-paper.pdf
UK theatre industry contributes over £1.28 billion to the economy annually and supports 290,000 jobs.
The UK’s creative industries are the second fastest growing sector, increasing at twice the rate of the wider economy. The Gross Value added is £123 bn pa.
The cultural & creative sector generates £50B a year for London and supports 1 in 5 jobs.
Cultural employment has risen by 21%. 296,000 estimated jobs in the Arts Sector. 1.1% of the entire UK workforce is in the cultural sector. 7.7 Billion contributes to the UK Arts and Culture sector.
Freelancers make up 16% of the nation’s workforce, in the performing arts this figure rises to 70%.
94% of the work created for the nation’s stages is entirely reliant on the freelance workforce.
40% of young freelancers earn less than £10,000 a year. 91% of these people have a Higher Education Qualification, whilst 52% have a post- graduate qualification (Making the arts sector the most educated voluntary industry within Europe)
The loss of 35,000 positions in music, performing and visual arts represents an 11.3% year-on-year decline.
Overall arts funding has fallen more than a third since 2010. Local Government funding down 43% from its 2008 peak.
Government funding of the Arts Councils in the decade between 2010 and 2020 was 16% lower in England, 21% lower in Wales and 63% lower in Northern Ireland in real terms.
Hynt-Wales Impact Report: The report, funded by Arts Council England: As of October 2023, Hynt has issued 29,866 cards to members to be able to use their Hynt cards in over 41 theatres and arts centres and associate venues across Wales. These organisations pay to be part of Hynt and as a network receive staff training, an annual symposium and an opportunity to share best practice and learning.
Some of the amazing highlights from the report include:
76% of cardholders said being part of Hynt improved their access to culture.
89% would go to the theatre less without their Hynt card and 14% would not go at all.
82% say Hynt makes going to the theatre more affordable.
68% report that Hynt improves their physical access to venues.
52% say they are better able to access content.
81% of cardholder report Hynt increases the amount of social interaction in their lives.
As a result of being part of the Hynt scheme, cardholders visited theatre 75% more. This resulted in 144,000 more theatre visits across Wales, half of which were full price tickets. 58% of cardholders said they visited a new venue as a result of Hynt.
For every complimentary ticket venues gave to Hynt cardholders, they made an average of £23.53 in additional revenue.
In addition, local economies surrounding Hynt venues benefit to the tune of £3,261,200 a year.
For every £1 spent on Hynt, £6.05 of social value is created.
Hynt venues generate £42.33 in additional value for every complimentary ticket they give away.
It is within this context that Shaping the Arts aims to deliver a clear set of recommendations that have been analysed by economists specialising in cultural revenue generation and infrastructure development.
During May 2023 to March 2024 (2023/24):
91% of adults engaged with the arts at least once in the last 12 months, a 1 percentage point increase from 2022/23 (90%).
Creative PEC: "Increasing the share of the creative industries to the northern regions economy from 3%, at present, to 5% by 2030, could lead to an equivalent GVA boost of around 10 Billion pounds"
R&D plays a key role in the innovation processes of many businesses, and is also a driver of economic growth at the local, regional and national level.
For this reason, many governments incentivise companies to invest in R&D (for a survey, see Becker 2015; and Bloom, Van Reenen and Williams 2019). For example, the UK provides an R&D tax credit that allows businesses engaging in R&D to claim back their costs against their tax bill.
But what activities count as R&D? The UK government’s current definition of R&D for the purposes of tax credits involves activities that are uncertain and rely on science and technology to resolve these uncertainties in the development of products and services. While the UK is not alone in focusing R&D incentives around science and technology sectors, the OECD takes a broader view of what constitutes ‘science and technology’ R&D and also includes R&D activities based in the arts, humanities and social sciences (AHSS). At least 23 other countries, including Germany, France, Italy, South Korea and Mexico recognise R&D in the AHSS for the purposes of tax credits.
The creative industries are a sector that is known to be highly innovative (here and here), but it is likely only a fraction of R&D by creative industries firms meet HMRC’s definition. Our research from the PEC’s longitudinal Creative Radar survey has captured some important insights about the innovation activities of creative industries businesses.
Companies with R&D budgets generate more turnover from new products.
We asked companies how much of their turnover was generated from products or services that were new-to-market. We find that companies that have R&D budgets are significantly more likely, all things being equal, to generate a higher share of their turnover from innovative products. These companies are also more likely to be located within the creative clusters identified in Nesta’s 2018 Creative Nation report Still, they are equally likely to be located within or outside the creative microclusters identified in the PEC’s Creative Radar report.
The 2020 BERD data for creative industries, when summed across the nine DCMS sub-sectors, gives a total value for creative industries R&D in 2020 of £3.314 billion. Taking our 9.7% figure and multiplying it by the £3.314 billion figure gives us the estimated value of AHSS R&D of £321 million. In this context it’s worth also noting that UK policymakers may be holding back its creative industries’ competitiveness: AHSS R&D is recognised by the tax authorities in the majority (23) of OECD countries, including creative industries heavyweights like Germany, France and South Korea. R&D policies, including R&D tax incentives, have been designed with the needs of businesses undertaking STEM R&D in mind. Our estimate of £321m investment by creative industries on AHSS R&D indicates the scale of current investment which is not within the scope of UK tax reliefs, and therefore the unrealised potential for unlocking further success in the UK’s creative industries. https://pec.ac.uk/blog_entries/estimating-the-contribution-of-arts-humanities-and-social-sciences-ahss-r-d-to-creative-industries-r-d/
