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Crafts CouncilInsight and advocacyPolicy briefings

January 2023


  • Craft and wellbeing
  • Craft business
  • Craft policy
  • Craft education

January 2023

  • A short briefing on how to do research into craft – methods, sources etc
  • Big picture analyses of declines in arts funding from the Policy and Evidence Centre and from local government
  • Creating long terms strategies for the arts – views from the House of Lords, the Creative Industries Trade and Investment Board, the Northern Ireland Executive and the two main political parties
  • Understanding craft businesses – Crafts Council’s annual maker survey findings, plus news on freelancer careers
  • BTEC reductions, Ofsted’s annual report, arts in private schools, arts and emotional skills
  • Plus – craft participation figures, health and wellbeing findings and craft people in the New Years honours.

Scottie- Close up, Elizabeth Ashdown

Crafts Council briefing on how to research craft

Our new briefing helps organisations and individuals working in craft to improve your access to research evidence about craft.

What’s happening to arts funding?

A fascinating blog from the Policy and Evidence Centre (PEC) shows how much overall public investment in the arts has changed over time. Analysing a dataset on arts funding in England, it reflects the decline in local government funding. This has fallen by more than 30% in real terms between 2009/10 and 2019/20. There has been an overall decline in local government budgets over this period, with local projects and significant leverage being lost.

There are some new competitive funds (eg Action Zones and tax incentives tied to specific outcomes), but there is a decline in the ‘soft power’ of the arts. The PEC finds that real terms investment has decreased by around 21% from 2009/10 to 2019/20 and calls for a new deal to bring clarity and a common understanding of the type of investment most need in the arts.

A report from the Commission on Culture and Local Government identifies four Cornerstones of Culture and cultural placemaking: capacity and resilience in place; leadership and power; funding and an effective evidence base. The report contains a broad selection of case studies including Sheffield Museums' Young Makers project who worked online with young people during the pandemic.

Cultural spend is a small part of what they do, but councils remain the biggest public funders of culture nationally, spending £2.4 billion a year in England alone on culture and related services.

The report calls for more to be done to improve access to high-quality cultural education, along with stronger pathways to creative industries, from school, through to Further Education, Higher Education, and employment.

And the UK’s creative industries have lost out on £163m from the European Union’s Creative Europe project following Brexit. This is according to analysis from the UK Trade and Business Commission, shared with the Independent Newspaper and featured in Arts Professional.

How do we create long terms strategies for the arts?

A House of Lords Library briefing on Arts and creative industries: The case for a strategy highlights how the Government’s planned ‘sector vision’, setting out its strategy for increasing growth in the creative industries sector, has been delayed until 2023. The report notes the fragmentation of the government’s strategy for supporting the creative industries and how it will need to invest in cultural learning and training opportunities in historically underserved areas, developing a network of hubs providing cultural spaces, workspaces and free, fast internet access in places most in need of levelling up.

Meanwhile the House of Lords Communications and Digital Committee warns that Government complacency risks undermining the UK’s creative industries in the face of increased international competition and rapid technological change. Its report At risk: our creative future says that the UK’s creative industries should sit at the heart of the UK’s economic growth plans and highlights a failure among senior Government figures to recognise the sector’s commercial potential.

The Creative Industries Trade and Investment Board’s (CITIB) new international strategy sets out a plan to help the UK creative sector achieve £78 billion in exports by 2030. It is founded on growing exports from across the UK, unlocking the opportunity for inward investment and sharing data and market insights.

The Northern Ireland Executive’s Department for Communities is creating a new culture, arts and heritage strategy for Northern Ireland based on a co-designed whole government approach.

In a speech at the Convention of the North in Manchester, Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove said he wants to "deepen and broaden" devolution, including for culture. And the Labour Party would devolve powers for cultural policy from Westminster to local communities if Labour win the next election, Sir Keir Starmer said in a New Year speech.

Understanding craft businesses

Findings from Crafts Council’s seventh annual (November 2022 – January 2023) will be published soon. They show a shift to makers needing funding and marketing advice since our first survey in 2016. Also:

  • There was an improvement in respondents’ earnings with those earning less than £10k falling from 73% in 2016 to 63% in 2022; 9% had a turnover of more than £40k compared to 6% in 2016.
  • 39% of respondents export (only 11% regularly). This represents only a 2% increase on 2021 and is still 9% below 2020 results.
  • The majority of respondents (48%) have had increased direct and indirect costs of running their business whilst 15% have seen a steady decline in sales since April 2022.
  • Thankfully the numbers that are no longer able to run their craft business are low (3%), with a further 2% having to re-evaluate their current business operations and business plan. Some have had to give up studios due to rising bills. Raw material costs have risen dramatically which has meant that makers have had to increase their own prices to counteract the rising costs. However, only 5% of makers reported that they have had to find or look for steady employment to counterbalance the negative effects of the cost of living crisis. Makers also raised the issue of changes in consumer buying habits as they invest less in craft in response to the crisis.

Creative United sheds light on the value of creative freelancers to the creative sector. It recommends the development of income support and employment schemes which recognise and support management of precarious and project-based work, as well as the introduction of a system of adult skills and lifelong learning designed to support individual contributions to the economy and community.

Creative freelancers will have more time to make the transition to a mandatory digital tax system. The Government has pushed back to April 2026 the scheduled rollout.

Reduction in BTECs, Ofsted’s annual report, arts in private schools, arts and emotional skills

The Government has published its review of post-16 qualifications at level 3 in England which a much more limited range than anticipated, with 75 applied general qualifications not being funded from 2025. These include the Pearson BTEC Level 3 National Foundation Diploma in Art and Design and UAL Level 3 Applied General Diploma in Art & Design, both of which help school/college learners progress to higher education. See Protect Student Choice for more details.

Ofsted’s annual report for 2020/22 finds that COVID is still having a big impact, with the curriculum still catching up amongst staff shortages and absences. Many schools are reporting behavioural and re-socialisation problems following lockdowns.

Teacher and teaching assistant recruitment is low. The cost of living crisis will also be impacting but is not reflected in the report at this stage.

Private schools are investing substantially in arts and culture according to a Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre (PEC) study of 20 private schools. Specialist provision ranges from photography, sculpture and ceramics to textiles, digital media and more.

The Centre for Education and Youth examines the current state of social and emotional learning (SEL) in schools in England. Its new report touches on the importance of cultural learning for improving social and emotional skills, finding that the arts are one of the easiest ways that schools can teach social and emotional skills.

Participation in craft activities – the numbers

The latest DCMS Participation Survey figures for the year 2022 summarise arts attendance and participation. Total attendance at an arts event has risen over 2022 from 67% of respondents to DCMS’ participation survey to 71%. By contrast attendance at a ‘craft exhibition (not a crafts market; crafts include for example textiles, woodworking)’ has not changed from between 6-7%.

Participation in ‘crafts (textile, ceramic, sculpting, carving, woodwork)’ has also not changed over the year at 15%. (There’s no corresponding figure given for arts participation in general.)

Plus … new arts, culture and health impacts and services

Culture for Health, a new EU report, aims to synthesise existing evidence on the positive effect of arts and cultural activities on health and well-being.

The Irish Government is to fund mental health support for creative practitioners through Minding Creative Minds, a 24/7 mental health and wellbeing support programme for the Irish creative community.

And, last but not least!

New Year honours 2023 related to craft and design include a knighthood for Grayson Perry (artist, writer and broadcaster) for services to the Arts; Timothy Eyles - OBE (Chair, Royal Society of Arts) for services to the Arts; Barbara Pauline Beadman - OBE, for services to the Glass Industry; Nipa Devendra Doshi - OBE (Product and Furniture Designer) for services to Design; Elizabeth Anne Walmsley - OBE (Artisan) for services to Design; Karen Watson - OBE (Founder and Artistic Director, East Street Arts) for services to the Art; Michael Gee - OBE (Luthier) for services to Music.

See a fuller list compiled by Crafts Council here


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