Department for Culture Media and Sport
background to creative britain
Creative Britain represents the culmination of a body of work that started in 1997. That year, Chris Smith, then DCMS Secretary of State, established the first Creative Industries Task Force.
In 1998 the task force published the first Creative industries mapping document. This document measured the sector’s contribution to Britain’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and Gross Value Added (GVA). The mapping document and its 2001 update served to raise awareness of the creative industries and the economic contribution they make.
By 2004, the creative industries’ economic contribution accounted for 6.4 per cent of GVA. In that year, creative exports totaled £13 billion or 4.3 per cent of all goods and services exported.
In November 2005, James Purnell, then Minister for Culture, launched the Creative Economy Programme (CEP) with two main objectives:
- to identify barriers and drivers of productivity and growth within the creative sectors
- building on this, to develop and implement a strategy to maximise the contribution of the creative industries to the UK economy
To meet the first objective, in 2006 DCMS commissioned Will Hutton and the Work Foundation to conduct an in-depth analysis of the market characteristics of the creative industries working with the industries themselves The result was the report, Staying ahead: the economic performance of the UK’s creative industries, published in June 2007.
The report and industry consultation highlighted a number of areas in which the creative industries would benefit from Government support. These areas were:
- skills provision
- access to finance and business support
- diversity
- investment
The Government responded by publishing the Creative Britain strategy, February 2008, which addresses the issues raised in the Staying Ahead analysis through 26 commitments.
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