Creative Industries take centre stage in UK recession recovery and future prosperity

Valerie | 15 May 2009, 13:30


Feargal Sharkey (right) and Andy Burnham at the Knotty Ash Youth Centre, Liverpool
(Image reproduced by kind permission from the  Liverpool Daily Post)

In recognition of the economic and social power of the UK’s burgeoning creative industries – a subject which c&binet regularly explores on this blog – the Government announced plans this week to create between five and ten thousand new jobs for young people in the culture and creative industries sectors, highlighting the significant role they play in achieving economic recovery and future prosperity.

‘Lifting People Lifting Places’ outlines the Government‘s priorities for the Department for Media, Culture & Sport (DCMS), its partners across the cultural and sports world and in local government for the new economy to demonstrate the positive contribution that creative sectors can make in difficult times to people’s lives and the places in which they live.

Outlining the Government’s vision for how culture, media and sport can play a part in helping the economy recover, Andy Burnham said:

“Rather than sitting on the fringes, culture, sport and the creative industries are part of the core script for recovery and future prosperity…

“As a decade of record investment has helped our cultural and sporting institutions to be the best they can be – better placed not just to help solve the problems of the downturn, but to make a more significant contribution to the new economy that emerges, providing more jobs and generating more income.”

Under the plans laid out by Work and Pensions Secretary James Purnell and Culture Secretary Andy Burnham, local councils, third sector groups, arts organisations and creative industry bodies will be able to bid for Government funding for new, innovative jobs as part of the £1.1bn Future Jobs Fund announced in the Budget last month.

UK Music has already has been working with the Government to explore how the creative industries can help get young people into work and they plan to develop a pathfinder project, working with Jobcentre Plus to offer up to 200 jobs to young unemployed people around this summer’s music festivals.

Alongside this and following the recent announcement from communities secretary Hazel Blears and Andy Burnham of a £3m fund to breathe new life into local communities through the use of vacant shops by musicians and other creative industries, the music industry and Government also this week launched UK Music’s new rehearsal rooms at the Knotty Ash Youth Centre in Liverpool. Aspiring musicians and bands will benefit from the first professionally equipped, Government funded music rehearsal space, with five other spaces due to opened in the coming months, in Bristol, Washington, Hastings, St Austell and rural Norfolk.

These initiatives mark the first time the Government and the cultural sectors have come together in a joint effort to ensure that this generation of young people looking for work opportunities are supported via a full programme of support which includes jobs, mentoring and skills development.

By investing now – in cultural, creative and sports-related jobs and training for young people, in regeneration projects for our communities, and in new cultural and sporting opportunities for everyone – the Government is nurturing creative talent and resources for the new economy that will emerge in a highly connected, fully digital world.