Our Members’ 2023 Wrap-Up

Our Members’ 2023 Wrap-Up

Thank you for your support over the past year – it is only through the combined strength and expertise of our creative, connected and forward-thinking members that we can shape the future of the cultural and creative Industries through effective influencing and practice-based solutions. We are, most definitely, better together.

In the past year, with your support, we have achieved great things with much more to come.

We advocated for the Cultural & Creative Industries

We have been putting your agenda at the heart of influencing conversations.

• In May, the UK Government’s Chancellor of the Exchequer held Treasury Connects for the creative industries, bringing together senior creative and political leaders to discuss how to collectively drive growth. Our Chief Executive, Caroline Norbury OBE co-chaired a discussion with the UK Government’s Lucy Frazer MP KC, Secretary of State for the Department of Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) focusing on investment solutions for the creative economy.

• With a UK Government General Election on the horizon, we continued to engage with HM Opposition, the Labour Party, the Green Party and the Liberal Democrat Party to ensure that as their manifesto development occurs, issues and solutions for the cultural and creative industries are part of their thinking.

• Alongside others, we played a key role in the development of the UK Government’s Creative Industries Sector Vision, published in June after rounds of input including our challenge to secure new research setting out levels and flows of investment across the cultural and creative industries. Our CEO, Caroline Norbury was appointed Co-Chair of the Growth strand of work, working alongside Creative UK member Fran Hegyi OBE, Director of the Edinburgh International Festival.

• Our members met with the UK Research & Innovation secretariat running the Pro-innovation Regulation of Technology Review for the creative industries, to set out solutions to help our community be better supported and equipped in key areas such as generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) as well as broader systemic issues affecting innovation in the cultural and creative industries. The UK Government response to this review was published in June, and then in October, building on this, the Council for Science and Technology wrote to the Prime Minister to set out how the UK Government needs to act to drive research and development equitably, and to great impact. The HMT Autumn Statement responded to this advice, committing to a wholesale review of R&D spending to inform future decisions about the proportion given to the cultural and creative industries.

• We put members forward for involvement in the Intellectual Property Office-led development of a voluntary Code of Practice on Copyright and Artificial Intelligence, submitted responses to the UK Parliament’s Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee Inquiries on British Film and High-End Television, Creator Remuneration and consultation on changes to R&D tax support. We made representations to HM Treasury ahead of the HMT Spring Budget and HMT Autumn Statement, hosting an investment-focused roundtable discussion with Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport Lucy Frazer KC MP the day after Autumn Statement, to set out solutions which address the levels and flows of funding across cultural and creative industries.

• We held member-only sessions on key topics such as informing Innovate UK’s design of new grant challenges and making sure our cultural members were front and centre, hearing from the UK Government’s independent Migration Advisory Committee Chair, Professor Brian Bell to support members submitting expertise into review of the Shortage Occupation List. We formally raised concerns about the UK’s current approach to immigration with the Home Office, which we persist on given the profound impact changes are likely to have on the creative economy. We partnered with strategic consultants, Global Counsel, to bring industry leaders together with for multiple policy discussions on the UK Government’s Media Bill, investment and artificial intelligence.

• Along with many members, we had many stimulating engagements during the political Party Conference season in the autumn. Based on member feedback, we are seeking to have a united presence for our members across the cultural and creative industries in future years, through a shared marquee with our members to showcase cultural events, policy debate and to cement our community status as central to political agendas.

We Connected our Members

In March, our Creative Coalition Festival returned for its third year with an in-person Opening Gala at Southbank Centre, followed by a three-day virtual event which hosted over 40 sessions from over 150 leading speakers and performers. We heard from Culture Secretary Rt Hon Lucy Frazer KC MP confirming a £2.6 million investment to support the UK’s creative industries, and Shadow Culture Secretary Lucy Powell MP shared how the creative economy is represented in Labour’s vision for growth. As a member, you have access to 100+ hours of footage from past festivals. We invite you to join us for The Big Creative UK Summit in March 2024.

We held 24 member-only events, across the UK, including our networks: Diversity Leader’s Forum, Creative Skills & Futures Network, Trade Body Network and our UK Council. We recruited a strengthened UK Council, convening at the BEYOND conference in November, and are delighted – and grateful – to have so many leaders across the creative economy leaning in to shape our influencing work.

We welcomed over 60 new members into Creative UK and facilitated new connections across our network.

We Represented Creativity Across the UK

We began the year by launching three new business support programmes in the North East, South East and Cornwall, working with local partners with funding from DCMS to support creative businesses to be ready for investment. Over the year, we have welcomed 117 companies onto our cohorts, and created an additional intervention for earlier-stage businesses after identifying a demand from local businesses. In November, DCMS announced the expansion of Create Growth Programme into six new areas, of which Creative UK is working with local partners to bring the programme to the West Midlands and Devon – now open for applications for their first cohort.

Three regional business support programmes came to an end this year. Wakefield: Advance, from 2020, Creative UK Cornwall, from 2021, and Creative UK Manchester, from 2022. These programmes supported over 700 businesses, through workshops, masterclasses, bootcamps, webinars, mentoring and other bespoke support.

Creative UK’s Filming in England team launched their Local Economic Impact toolkit to help local authorities in England measure and communicate the impact of the screen sector on local communities. Find out more about Filming in England in 2023.

Looking ahead, we’re continuing to evaluate how we can best support regions to grow.

We Supported the Creative Economy

2,700 students of our member institutions, accessed our resources, events and opportunities through our Student Membership.

We have supported over 630 creative businesses and our Filming in England team supported the production of 125 Feature Films, creating 5,000 workings days for freelancers.

Through a partnership with Triodos Bank, our September Investment Summit in Newcastle launched a new £35 million Creative Growth Finance II fund to unleash the power of the creative sector and drive UK growth and innovation.

In the past year we invested £9 million into 30 creative businesses and clients within Creative UK’s investment portfolio have reported an 87% improvement in average monthly revenues, 168 jobs created, £17.4 million additional third-party funding raised and 32% average headcount growth.

We Promoted a Fairer Creative Industries

In December, we launched a new e-learning module, to raise awareness and help prevent incidents of bullying and harassment. Our bullying and harassment work is steered through a roundtable working in partnership with leaders across the cultural and creative industries. In November, the roundtable was attended by Rt. Hon Lucy Frazer MP KCE, Secretary of State for the Department for Culture, Media & Sport and Sir John Whittingdale MP, Minister for Creative Industries who reinforced their support for the work and helped launch the new module.

Looking ahead

We will continue to focus our influencing on four policy pillars, which are not new to members or the organisation, informed through hundreds of conversations over the past year. This includes a focus on the investment ecosystem, education and skills, the UK’s hard and soft power globally, and supporting workforce development including freelancers – issues that cut across the breadth of the cultural and creative industries. Together, with our members, Creative UK will look to make a unique contribution to these agendas which serves the entirety of our community.

As part of this, we are advocating for a Creativity Bank – an investment initiative for the cultural and creative industries, similar to Big Society Capital, in order to leverage better financial products and services such as those that exist for social enterprise, tech and the green economy. We want to make sure that the UK is providing the development capital needed to ensure that the UK we can strengthen and maintain our world-leading cultural and creative industries.

It appears the value and growth potential of the cultural and creative industries is finally being recognised across UK Government. Whilst we’ve won this narrative, the full potential of the cultural and creative industries won’t be realised without addressing systemic issues. It’s only with you, and alongside you, that we’ll change the status quo by bringing solutions that matter, with evidence to demonstrate our case for change.

Thank you for driving and supporting our vision, and we look forward to collaborating with you next year to place creativity at the heart of our society, economy and education. Here’s to an incredible 2024 – we’ve proven time and time again how dynamic we are as a movement for change – so I say, let’s bring it on.

Caroline Norbury OBE

Chief Executive