A report Tuesday (5/7) on the BBC News website states, “The arts get less than 0.1% of public spending but deliver four times that in gross domestic product, an Arts Council England-commissioned report says. Analysis by the Centre for Economics and Business Research found the sector had a turnover of £12.4bn in 2011 with £856m coming from tourism alone. It follows the culture secretary’s call for the arts world to focus on its economic case for public funding. … Tuesday’s report, described by Arts Council England as the first comprehensive analysis ‘to determine the value’ of the contribution of arts and culture to the national economy, also found: The arts and culture industry employed, on average, the equivalent of 110,600 full‐time employees in the UK from 2008-11—about 0.45% of total employment; The sector generated more, per pound invested, ‘than the health, wholesale and retail, and professional and business services sectors’; The £12.4bn turnover of businesses in the arts and culture industries in 2011 led to an estimated ‘gross value added’ boost to the economy of £5.9bn. Arts Council England hailed the 0.4% contribution of arts and culture to gross domestic product as ‘a significant return on the less than 0.1% per cent of government spending invested in the sector.’ ”
Posted May 8, 2013
