Culture

90 Culture Vultures
The Treasury’s Cox Report is a recognition that strategy did not
work. But it is not clear whether the lesson really has been learned.
Fetishising creativity, ironically, has become one way of making sure
that the plain business of developing new products and services
plays too small a role in the British economy. The idea that there is a
design solution to the problem of British industry is itself part of the
problem. Instead we should entertain the possibility that there is a
British industry solution to the problems of the creative sector. That
might mean that a more innovative industry left less room for an
independent creative sector, but instead incorporated creativity into
its everyday business.
Recommendations
We need transparency and clarity in funding creative industries and
cultural activities. Supporting social goods, like libraries and art
galleries should not be confused with promoting export industries.
Funding agencies should avoid fudging the two, however tempting.
Government aid to industry needs to be transparent, not disguised
under the ideological rubric of ‘knowledge economy’ or ‘creative
Britain’, useful as that might be for political promotion. The same
safeguards against creating dependency or promoting bureaucracy
need to be observed with the creative industries as with any other.
Rationalise the burgeoning bureaucracy surrounding the creative
industries. The government agencies dedicated to these seem to be in
danger of dwarfing the very industries that they are supposed to
serve. There is a real problem of reproduction of effort among the
DCMS, Design Council, NESTA, Local Authorities’ Cultural Task
Forces and so on.