News about Leicester's Creative Industries
This page is part of the news section
20th April 2011
Do politicians see the arts as being important? What do
they regard as being included in a policy for the arts?
I joined two politicians
to find out. Jon Ashworth is standing as Labour's candidate in the Leicester
South By-election and Ivan Lewis the Shadow Secretary of State for Culture.
Trevor: So Jon, you're standing as a candidate
in the Leicester South by-election [May 5th]. We are here at CURVE which is in
the constituency. What for you are the key issues for an Arts policy?
Jon: If elected, I will be a huge supporter of the arts.
Art enriches communities and their quality of life. The arts makes life better
for people. It also enhances social cohesion. It helps to bring people in our
diverse community together. The arts also plays a role in economic regeneration
and plays an important role in education, where artists work with children and
young people. Leicester has a high rate of child poverty and part of this problem
can be addressed by the arts. I am very worried about how the cuts will affect
children in poverty. We all need to work together on this issue, it is a major
challenge. The Council, The Mayor, the MPs - they all need to work together
Trevor: Ivan, you're shadow secretary of state for culture,
media and sport. What from you're perspective are the issues facing the arts?
Ivan: Arts and culture are being taken into parts of the
community that normally would not have access to them. They enrich people's lives
and creative opportunities for people to access education and jobs. The cuts,
however, are are having a disproportionately negative effect on the quality of
life of many sections of the community, children in particular. Community based
arts projects are doing really excellent work, for example, to support the quality
of life of people who experience mental health issues and play an important role
in the regeneration of the city. They are helping to revitalise run down areas
but we must maintain our investment in arts and culture.
What Jeremy Hunt [Secretary of State for culture, media and sport] does not appreciate
is the cumulative effect of the cuts - at Central Government, at local authority
level, to the Arts Council, to the Third Sector ... it all hits local services
and the arts very hard. One part of the strategy to counteract this is to revitalise
the economy.
Trevor: Do you think this revitalising impact requires the
public sector and business to work together?
Clive: The LibDems have argued that 'philanthropy' can work;
they have seen arts projects in London benefit from donations from big business.
Trevor: Here in Leicester we don't have
the same level of big national corporations; Leicester is dominated by small
businesses that do not have the cash to spare to be philanthropic.
Ivan: The creative industries will drive
economic recovery. Last week Labour launched its Review
of Creative Industries.
There are two elements to it, one is how we maintain Britain's success, and two
is how we maintain access to apprenticeships, intern-ships, access to jobs for
young people. In the past, this access has been limited to a quite a narrow section
of the population. We want to open up access to these opportunities to people
from all backgrounds. We want to encourage investment so that these leading edge
businesses can grow.
Trevor: How much investment will be needed?
Ivan: Compared to health, education and
policing, we are talking about very small amounts of investment that would bring
massive gains - not only social gains but also jobs and growth. We need to come
out of recession and go into economic recovery. This isn't just a soft cuddly
agenda. This is a hard-edge question about how Britain recovers. Investment in
art and culture should have been a significant part of that recovery.
Trevor: Are certain sectors of industry going to lead that
recovery? Are we going to be able to export British expertise from our leading
edge companies?
Ivan: Apart from financial services, the
biggest single drivers for jobs and growth in the UK, are creative industries.
What most people in the creative industries will tell you, is that they have
seen the massive achievement of 'UK plc' and that success is very much in peril
from the cuts backs. At the moment, we in the UK are second only to the United
States in terms of creative industries. What they are worried about is that,
like the manufacturing sector, they will be leading growth and then go into terminal
decline. What I challenge the government to do is to is to recognise that we
do need a strategy to ensure that we maintain our competitive advantage and don't
slide down the league table.
Trevor: Here in Leicester, do our Universities offer a path
into those opportunities?
Jon: Yes, I have talked to the students, staff and the Vice
Chancellor of DMU [Professor Dominic Shellard] and have been very impressed by
the work that they do.
Trevor: In terms of Leicester's leading edge of creative
industries, what do you see as standing out?
Jon: I want to ensure that the Universities, The City Council
and the MPs are lobbying the relevant agencies, to ensure we have the right level
of support that we need for our creative industries, to sustains themselves.
Trevor: DMU's Innovation
Centre provides incubation start
up services to new high tech businesses. Prospect Leicestershire does a lot to
encourage businesses to relocate into the area. Are these the agencies we should
be working with?
Ivan: The challenge is that you have got
to bring together the civic and political leadership with business and education
to share in a vision and drive it forward. You have to spot the opportunities
and accentuate the strengths in this city. Creative Industries are one of Leicester's
strengths and also a source of potential growth. We need to focus on their education
and skills and access to finance. There is a need need to support people who
have got innovative ideas, to enable those businesses to scale up and to grow
and it does have to involve public and private sector partnerships.
Trevor: Over the past few years EMDA (the East Midlands
Development Agency) has done a lot of that work. Apparently that is being closed
down. What will happen to its functions?
Clive: If they scrap the Regional Development Agencies a
lot of important functions will be lost, together with the hard won achievements
that have been made. But they [The Government] cannot demonstrate where most
of the functions of the RDA will go.
Jon: Leicester does not have the local enterprise partnerships
that would pick up these development functions. The Mayor and City Council would
have a big role in it.
Clive: If the state retreats from these roles there is a
real risk of losing the progress that has been made. The state can't do everything
but it has a crucial leadership role. If the development agency role is gone
what is going to replace it? I see people like Jon and Peter Soulsby [Labour's
Mayoral Candidate] providing leadership and a vision for the city, spotting the
opportunities and holding on to them and playing to the strengths of the local
economy.
Trevor: So what we are seeing in this vision
of Leicester in the future? What is the work that MPs need to do, along with
Councillors, the Mayor and central government, to make that vision become a reality?
We in Leicester need to be a European class city. We can look at what was achieved
in Liverpool ...
Ivan: ... and Manchester ...
Trevor: ...and now Londonderry ... where huge growth in the
local economy came from having that European status. Can we achieve that in Leicester?
Jon: Absolutely! But we all need to work together and Ivan
is right - we need a strategy and a vision. We are a hugely diverse and vibrant
city with lots of potential and opportunities.
Ivan: Because of its diversity, Leicester has a lot links
with emergent economies. This holds a lot of promise for local businesses, what
ever sector they are in.
Ivan Lewis the
Shadow Secretary of State for Culture and Jon Ashworth, Labour's
candidate in the Leicester South By-election
What came across from this discussion was that the future
of Leicester lies with people who have vision and not with those who are obsessed
with wheelie bins. Jon Ashworth clearly takes pride in his city and wants to
see it be successful and prosperous and understands the role that can be played
by the arts in achieving that. Ivan Lewis is down there in London, as an ally
and friend, playing his part at national level in helping us to achieve what
we want.
They both acknowledged that Leicester has achieved a lot
of which it can be proud.
The key message I took away from this conversation was that prosperity for the
arts is closely bound up with what happens in the economy. The arts will flourish
only if the economy revives but in that picture, the creative industries and
leading-edge digital companies will play an important role.
Several politicians have said, over this week, that the public sector needs to
work in partnership with business. If that is true, then we will need to get
our thinking caps on if we are to figure out how such partnerships will keep
alive the work of artists in our local community.
Links
Labour's
Creative Industries Policy Review
Leicestershire: a place with no boundaries
DMU's Innovation Centre
The Leicester Creative Business Depot
The Creative Industries Regeneration Team
Creative Leicestershire
Made in Leicestershire
Creative Services for business
Other pages you might like
Digital arts in Leicester
The Cultural Quarter
The case for music in Leicester
