How pitmen can help us understand challenging relationships

The recent news that The Pitmen Painters which began life at Newcastle’s Live Theatre before moving to the National Theatre and Broadway has found another lease of life on London’s West End reminded me again of this jewel of an example of how public investment in the arts can lead to sustained success in commercial markets creating jobs, turnover and a big feel good factor in the bargain.

The recent news that The Pitmen Painters which began life at Newcastle’s Live Theatre before moving to the National Theatre and Broadway has found another lease of life on London’s West End reminded me again of this jewel of an example of how public investment in the arts can lead to sustained success in commercial markets creating jobs, turnover and a big feel good factor in the bargain.

So it is really pleasing to see that one of the sector skills councils for the creative industries, Creative and Cultural Skills along with Arts Council and NESTA are currently commissioning research into the relationship between the subsidised arts and commercial creative industries with respect to training and the movement of talented people between the two. What is particularly welcome about this research is the focus on the arts within the constructed creative industries definition. Too often the arts constituents of the creative industries get lost amongst the big boys of advertising, television and media.

Particularly it is the diversity in scale of creative businesses, the complexity of supply chains between many of the creative industry sub-sectors and the business classification system that make it a tough job to robustly advocate on behalf of all the creative industries.

The Creative Industries Council who met for the first time this July have been given the job of sorting some of this out, set up to be a voice for the creative industries to government. They will focus on areas where there are barriers to growth such as accessing finance, finding new markets and skills development. Given the challenge for the arts of being seen beyond the Department of Culture, Media and Sport it is good news that the Creative Industries Council is chaired by the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, Vince Cable. The challenge still remains to better understand the role arts play and their relationships, across the whole gamut, from writers, illustrators, artists, designer makers, lighting technicians, dancers, theatre makers to name but a few - in the creative industries sector.

Creative and Cultural Skills rightly say that more sophisticated public funding decisions will need to be made in the future and the stronger the evidence base demonstrating the contribution of the arts within the creative industries sector and the wider economy the easier it will be to champion the arts as a part of that. Not that pound signs should be the only way of understanding the arts contribution to society.

In the summer the Treasury announced a discussion on the Green Book, the bible for civil servants that provides guidance on how ministerial proposals should be assessed before allocating public funds. Opening up the debate on how ‘non-market’ impacts, like health, wellbeing and the environment are considered in budgetary terms is of course a step in the right direction. Here at the RSA we are keen to contribute to this debate. We are about to begin a project looking at understanding impact and value across the whole of a cultural project called Making Culture Work. Watch this space.