Regional creative industries policy-making under New Labour

Abstract

This article analyses creative industries policy in the English regions under New Labour (1997–2010). It examines the ideas behind regional creative industries policies (RCIPs) and their implementation. Focusing on the activities of the English regional development agencies, the primary bodies responsible for the implementation of creative industries policy in the British regions, the article places regional cultural policy during the New Labour period within its broader political, social and economic contexts. It explains and evaluates New Labour's RCIPs, arguing that creative industries policy at the regional level changed over the course of New Labour's three terms of office, becoming increasingly economistic at the expense of a more social democratic vision of regional equality and democracy. We identify three issues that were problematic for New Labour's RCIP: a reliance on the idea of “clusters”, commercialisation and shifting regional governance.

Keywords:

• creative industries
• New Labour
• cultural policy
• regionalism
• clustering
• governance

Notes

1 Our focus is the English RDAs, as the economic development agencies of the devolved nations of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland were separate entities with different governance structures, targets and sources of funding. Over 40 semi-structured interviews were conducted across England between 2012 and 2013, with a range of policy-makers, RDA creative industry officers, creative industry specialists and arts professionals.

2 The objectives of the Structural Funds were to address economic imbalances in disadvantaged areas of the European Union and to promote adjustment of these regions where economic and social development is lagging behind that of core Member States.

3 These include figures such as Paul Skelton, former head of Sheffield city council's cultural industries team, Keith Hackett, consultant and former Liverpool City Councillor from 1987 to 1995, alongside members of the Forum on Creative Industries (FOCI), several of whom were interviewed for this project.

4 FOCI was a group of policy-makers, local council officers and researchers in the North of England who had been working with the notion of the cultural industries during the 1980s and 1990s, and whose work was influenced by the ‘cultural industries’ approach of the Greater London Council (GLC). After the GLC's closure in 1986, a range of cultural industries strategies were instigated in Northern England, including the Huddersfield Creative Town initiative, the Sheffield Cultural Industries Quarter and the Manchester Cultural Industries Development Service, by individuals who would become part of FOCI (see Prince, 2010, pp. 127–128).

5 Examples of the early RDA creative industry investments include the intellectual property strategic support agency OwnIt, capital investment for the creation of numerous “creative hubs” in cities across the country, support for skills programmes such as Skillset and a programme of research into regional creative industries mapping documents.

6 For example, a well-known example of such a “failure” within the creative workspace community is Velocity in Bradford, which failed to build a sustainable commercial model, and quickly had its funding cut after the financial crisis.

7 The strongest example of Central Government's preference for a “one size fits all” model was the Business Simplification Support Programme (BSSP). Initiated in 2008, it imposed significant restrictions on what the RDAs could do for the creative industries, by stipulating that all business support activity should go through the agency Business Link.