Creative Industries Leadership Group: Working Group Reports and Ministerial Response – March 2022

Scottish Government Response to the Creative Industries Leadership Group’s Working Group Reports into Skills and Resilience of the Creative Industries

Ministerial Foreword by Neil Gray, Minister for Culture, Europe and International Development and Co-Chair of the Creative Industries Leadership Group.

I would like to thank the two working groups of the Creative Industries Leadership Group for all their hard work, thoughtful insights and commitment on behalf of their sector in producing these reports to support the working of CILG. I would like to thank their chairs, Carol Sinclair and Dougal Perman, for leading these groups over the last year.

I welcome the two working group reports. They draw on their own individual creative careers, the experience of their businesses, on conversations with others in the sector and beyond, as well as research papers, to give us a useful lens through which to view the issues of skills and resilience in the creative industries.

The perspective of CILG members helps further our understanding of the issues they feel to be most urgent and to allow us to constructively progress the conversation between industry and the public sector about how best to tackle two of the important issues facing this sector and many others, particularly following the significant impact of the pandemic on the creative industries.

The set up of CILG’s short-life working groups has been an important one for the Group, its members as well as the Scottish Government and the public sector agencies that support the creative industries. It helps all parties to work together, exchange information, share learning and helps promote better mutual understanding and to identify opportunities. This is something that I welcome and want to continue to develop. I am grateful to the public sector agencies who have given their time to the group and committed to future actions and meetings on areas covered by the report to benefit the sector. I am also grateful to all the other organisations that have also provided evidence and assistance to help inform and shape the work of the groups.

Taking the recommendations of the reports forward

The wide-ranging comments and recommendations of the two working groups will inform the work of the CILG going forward and help it to prioritise actions and develop a further work-plan for the coming year. I look forward to that discussion at the next meeting of CILG. It will also lead to a series of further conversations with policy areas across Scottish Government and with different public agencies on issues they have raised that should benefit people and business in the creative industries. Furthermore, the reports highlight a number of priority areas for the industries which the Scottish Government will be reflecting in a revised Creative Industries Policy Statement later this year and which will be brought back to the CILG for further comment.

The reports cover a great number of issues. These include broad and fundamental ideas like how to foster creativity at all stages of education, to points of detail about specific initiatives.

Focusing on the key themes, many of which appear in both reports, there is an emphasis on the need to define the full scale and scope of the creative industries and its particular characteristics and how it operates, for instance the reliance on freelancers and its project-based nature. There is throughout the assertion that we need to understand the real value of the sector, both in its economic value, and its further social, environmental and cultural value, and its value as an enabling sector of the whole economy. Allied to that, is the call for greater visibility for the creative industries and their importance, and the need for advocacy so that the sector can be recognised and valued appropriately.

I agree more should be done to represent the creative industries sector appropriately in wider discussions across Government and society. While practical considerations mean the detailed recommendations of how that should be done cannot be taken forward in the way proposed, some actions are being taken to better assess the sector and its impact.

I welcome the fact the group has focused on advocacy for the sector. I look forward to discussing how CILG and the Scottish Government can work together to involve as many people and businesses from the sector as possible in supporting this work, raising its visibility, and championing success. Experience from other sectors suggests that where people working in a sector combine with businesses and employers to promote their sector and work with government and agencies on finding the best routes to resolving problems, this is the best route to success.

In terms of measuring the value of contributions to our economy more appropriately, I note that the National Strategy for Economic Transformation programme is committed to developing a wellbeing economy monitor and officials will keep you informed as that develops on how measurement will be set up in future.

The working groups have set out the particular characteristics of the sector which make it both versatile and vulnerable. I would like to continue to work with CILG to make more of the strengths and tackle the barriers outlined. I also note that the National Strategy for Economic Transformation, which is the Scottish Government’s overarching ten-year programme for the whole economy, was published after you submitted your reports. There is much in that strategy, with its focus on entrepreneurship, start-ups and scale-ups as well as lifelong skills and wellbeing economy, that should fit with, and help address, some of the issues you outline. While the delivery of the Strategy is still being designed, the Scottish Government will work with you to help ensure that the needs of the creative industries are taken into account so that opportunities can benefit creatives and creative businesses alike.

Many of the areas that the reports cover are ones where Scottish Government also wants to see improvement. These include access, equality and diversity, net zero and fair work. I welcome your contribution on ways these can be improved and look forward to seeing how these can be integrated into wider work being carried out on these. I should note that on creative education, work is already underway to improve how creativity becomes more valued at every stage of our system. Some of your recommendations are echoed by those of the National Partnership for Culture. Officials will be able to offer more information in due course on how this is progressing. In terms of skills pathways, nurturing talent and lifelong learning, you will see that our skills agencies, SDS and SFC are already discussing how to do more for creative pathways, while the work of Scotland’s National Strategy for Economic Transformation on lifelong learning will also drive this forward.

The reports ask for more support of intermediaries and networks. Given the existing support for some networks, this is something that I would like to explore in more detail, as well as where there are gaps. I agree with your emphasis on the need for nationwide digital infrastructure which the Scottish Government is working hard to deliver as a necessary underpinning for economic success. I acknowledge too that we are coming out of a very difficult time for creatives and their businesses following the pandemic and this makes your reports all the more pertinent.

While there may be reasons that prevent some of the ways the reports suggest businesses might be supported, such as having Ministers compel government-funded organisations to buy from creative businesses and individuals in their sectors, the Scottish Government and its public sector partners already provide extensive support in areas like procurement, for instance by supporting and promoting free advice, training and resources for SME suppliers that wish to bid for public sector contracts – and it may be that the sector can benefit from this support.

Where barriers are highlighted, I and fellow Ministers will do all I can to help ensure public sector programmes consider the needs of the sector and those working in it. I hope that the flexibility we demonstrated in providing some of the funding made available over the pandemic shows our resolve and, as you acknowledge, we should learn from this experience.

Finally, I would like to reiterate my particular thanks to those CILG members who formed the working groups and shared their perspective and made constructive suggestions. I am convinced this is the start of a valuable ongoing process that will help those in the creative industries work towards better outcomes and greater recognition of what is a truly resourceful, tenacious and inspiring sector.

Background to the Scottish Government response

Following the refresh of the Creative Industries Leadership Group in 2021, two short-life working groups were set up to consider specific issues of strategic importance to the growth and development of the creative industries.

In March 2021, CILG agreed that the first two working groups consider the following key issues:

(1) How can we train a creative workforce for the future of the industry?

(2) How can we increase the resilience of the creative industries sector?

Throughout the course of a year, the two working groups reported back frequently to each CILG meeting with an update on their activity and actions and to present any items for discussion or recommendations.

In March 2022, the working groups brought forward their recommendations for discussion. Below, the Scottish Government’s response to these recommendations has been set out. Together, the CILG, Scottish Government, and public agencies will work to consider how to best work together to take forward action which progresses agreed areas of interest.

The membership of the two working groups are:

(1) How can we train a creative workforce for the future of the industry?

Carol Sinclair, Carol Sinclair Ceramics (chair)

Jane Muirhead, Raise the Roof Productions

Alex Smith, XpoNorth

Jacqueline Donachie, Glasgow Sculpture Studios

(2) How can we increase the resilience of the creative industries sector?

Dougal Perman, Scottish Music Industry Association (Chair)

Brian Coane, The Leith Agency and co-chair Creative Industries Leadership Group

Chris Hunt, freelance creative

Rachael Brown, Cultural Enterprise Office

Scottish Government Response

The Scottish Government response to the two working group reports is set out below and in Annex A.

The response below sets how the Scottish Government is responding to each of the recommendations. Under each recommendation, it sets out potential next steps and opportunities for CILG members to discuss. This includes actions, recommendations and opportunities.

This is followed by a Next Steps section. This sets out how the Scottish Government expects its response to the working group reports to act as a discussion paper for the CILG meeting in June 2022. This discussion will help to determine the areas where CILG considers that it should be working on with its members and with the Scottish Government and the public sector partners over the next year.

Annex A sets out the work that the Scottish Government and its public sector agencies are already undertaking in respect of each of the recommendations of the two working groups. It also provides some further information on the policy background and thinking behind the Scottish Government’s response.