Survey of Creative Businesses
Author:
Prepared for NESTA by ICM Research
Year published:
March 2006
Download:
Creative Businesses Survey 1.5MB
Creative Businesses Tables 435 KB
Description/aims
The creative industries are one of the most important contributors to the UK economy. So it is important that we accurately measure their contribution to economic activity. Doing so can help both policymakers and industry professionals to communicate key concepts, share reliable data and make the case for greater investment.
There have been renewed attempts to estimate the true size of the creative economy. The Department for Culture Media and Sport (DCMS) and the Greater London Authority (GLA) both published studies in 2007. This report complements their work and seeks to improve on the available data about the true extent of creative activity within the economy.
Recommendations
We have been able to compare the effectiveness of the Creative Trident in both Australia and the UK, and this offers us lessons on how the UK data could be improved. The DCMS and the Office for National Statistics should work together to provide better data and improve the usefulness of their datasets.
- It should be possible to improve information within datasets by increasing the resolution - the extent to which we can drill down the data into smaller subsets - and providing finer classifications in the census 2001 data where more than 50,000 are employed in a single industry.
- The sample size of the Labour Force Survey should be increased to improve its accuracy and to allow for more detail about occupations within industries. A more frequent census of those in work including their income or a much bigger LFS should be conducted at least every five years.
- A stronger metrics culture would benefit from greater access to the source data for all official reports. Source data for the DCMS Economic Estimates and this report should be available for others to build on and challenge. Census and LFS data should be fully downloadable.