Creative Survival in Hard Times

Tuesday, 30th March 2010

Those of you who have been following the fortunes of my New Deal of the Mind project with a mixture of interest and scepticism will perhaps wish to read the report we have published today with the Arts Council. Creative Survival in Hard Times is an attempt to grapple with the issue of employment in what has, for better or worse, become known as the "creative industries".
We make a number of recommendations, but central to the report is the conviction that a new spirit of entrepreneurship should be nurtured from the bottom up. For this reason we believe the next government should revisit the Enterprise Allowance Scheme, which ran from 1983-91. The EAS gave people slightly more than the dole for a year if they agreed to come off benefit and set up their own businesses.
It is interesting that the only working politician with a good knowledge of the scheme, Ken Clarke, has been asking alumni of the scheme to contact him via the social networking site Linked In.
I am genuinely interested in your thoughts about the report so do let me know (I get a feeling you will).

Filed under: Enterprise (9 more articles) , Enterprise Allowance Scheme (6 more articles) , Ken Clarke (110 more articles) , New Deal of the Mind (11 more articles) , Unemployment (86 more articles)

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In2minds

March 31st, 2010 8:11pm Report this comment

Is Rhoda Klapp asleep?

Beer Moth

March 31st, 2010 10:24pm Report this comment

"...a new spirit of entrepreneurship should be nurtured..."

I would be interested to learn just how many alumni of the EAS, made good, only to be brought down by Lawson and Major with their, 'If it isn't hurting it isn't working' and their moratorium, which cut off the lifeblood of so many fledgling businesses.

It did hurt but I can't see it worked very well.

Rhoda Klapp

April 1st, 2010 6:22pm Report this comment

In2minds, I contained my initial scepticism, and read the report. All 3MB of it. And I found it...not too bad really. The older of the two little Klapps is a graduate and unemployed. He lies about reading the papers and watching TV all day. As he has a degree in Media Studies, he is well qualified to do so. I wish the report had referred to the worthlessness of most degrees, and the failure of them to fit the graduate for anything much. Anyway, some random thoughts about the report.

Unpaid internship is a scam, it is beneath contempt.

A new EAS would indeed get some people out of the ranks of the unemployed. It would be nice if there was more support, in financial and advice terms. It would be nice if the gatekeeping was at a minimum. ie don't let the council's jobsworths do it.

I'm not sure the creative dimension here is relevant. Obviously it means something to the writers of the report, but it is not vital to the sense of the thing as a whole.

Creative people do it anyway. They can't be stopped. I never worked out why FDR paid Woody Guthrie to write songs to support the new deal. Struck me as kinda creepy. Like Soviet art. And some of the FDR new deal output was just that. No good comes of political agendas in art subsidised by taxes.

I wouldn't discuss creative industries without a nod toward intellectual property. Copying/Pirating is draining incomes, undermining parts of the industry. Who's doing it? The same young people as we are trying to help.

Of course, the involvement of all those arty people in the project tends to put one off in a usual suspects sort of way. Eloi, the lot of them. Just possibly a teeny-weeny bit of prejudice on my part? Perish the thought.

MaxSceptic

April 5th, 2010 8:01pm Report this comment

Martin,

It says on the AC link:
New Deal of the Mind was commissioned by Arts Council England to investigate policy options for helping young people who wish to enter the creative industries develop the necessary creative and entrepreneurial skills.

As someone who is, in principle, against subsidies for 'the arts' in general and has a loathing of organisations such as the Arts Council in particular, I have only one question:

How much has the British taxpayer paid for this commission?

I would really appreciate an answer.

Martin Bright

April 6th, 2010 9:04am Report this comment

Rhoda - thanks for your thoughts, and for containing your prejudice. I'm pleased with the report, although most of the credit must go to my co-author Barbara Gunnell. We both had some of our own prejudices shifted by working on the report. In my case I became increasingly convinced by the value of encouraging small business start-ups. Personally, I would encourage every new graduate to set up his or her own company.

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