Microspatial clustering in London’s Creative industries

This version prepared for Slideshare by Alan Freeman in December 2013

Please cite as Freeman, A. 2005. ‘Mapping London’s Creative Industries’. London: GLA

This version contains details of evidence on microspatial clustering that is not available in published reports

See also the Creative Industries 2004 and 2010 updates for material on clustering

Mapping London’s Creative Industries

Alan Freeman

A new source of data about the creative industries

Evidence is central to LDA creative strategy Until now our data was from official sources

only– Very little information about local areas– Information about individual sectors quite

unreliable

Microdata provides better information– about local areas– about individual industries– about firm size

But is inconsistent with official data

Micro-data

Inter-Departmental Business Register (IDBR)

Commercial company databases– Additional information– Statistically more reliable (100 times more

records)

Raw data is not consistent with official data

Has to be transformed to make it comparable

Costly to use – very labour-intensive

The creative and sector data project

We have now completed a pilot– commissioned from Trends Business

Research Economics (TBR economics)

Data from this phase will be analysed Next phase starts 2006

– will inform creative strategy– will monitor and evaluate impacts– will be extended to other LDA sectors

What do you want to know?

Questions we can answer now– Where are the Creative Industries? Are they

found where other industries are not?– Do they cluster (do businesses of the same

type like to be close to each other)?– Do they co-locate (do businesses of different

types like to be close to each other)?

Questions we would like to answer later– How do they grow? Do they grow differently

from other industries?– What is the structure of specific subsectors, eg

Music?

Questions, questions

Do Creative Firms Cluster?

Some cluster more than others

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Percent of London's Standard Output Areas

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Total Creative

Radio and Television

Total All Industries 2003(SOAs)

Film and Video

Some cluster in a similar way

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Percent of London's Standard Output Areas

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Publishing

Advertising

Architecture

Total All Industries 2003(SOAs)

Some less than others

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Percent of London's Standard Output Areas

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Music, Performing Arts

Leisure Software

Art and Antiques

Total All Industries 2003(SOAs)

Where do Creative Industries Locate?

Workforce jobs, all industries

Fill

Creative Jobs

Source: Trends Business Research, GLAE

Creative Businesses

Source: Trends Business Research, GLAE

Where Creative Jobs dominate

Where Creative Firms dominate

Employees per business

Employees per business

Employees per business

A Historical Memory?

A creative value chain?

Source: TBR and GLAE

Total Creative Industries

Source: TBR and GLAE

Specialising in Creation

Source: TBR and GLAE

DCMS Evidence Toolkit (DET) ‘Creation’ function

Concerns, solutions, and extensions

Some unexpected benefits

SIC 5-digit codes– IDBR contains 5-digit codes, ABI and LFS do not– TBR economics extract 5-digit ‘multipliers’ from the

IDBR– we can apply these to ABI and LFS data– this should work for other sectors such as retailing

or construction

More accurate treatment of self-employed– partners, sole traders, professionals

A possible cross-check on the ABI itself– we know there are discrepancies between the LFS

and the ABI– the data may help us find out why

Consistency

We asked for consistency in the overall total and for four DET ‘domains’

This is new: DCMS and others including GLA still use the ‘DCMS Mapping’ framework

For individual SIC codes and sectors complete consistency cannot be guaranteed– ABI Architecture = 20,000– TBR Architecture = 10,000

This can be improved on but not perfected

Time

No Creative Industry before 1992– The SIC codes which allow the industry to be defined did

not exist

Micro-data itself does not go back very far Reliability of time-series data

– the size and scope of the database may change

Micro-data is costly– To repeat for ten years would reach a 6-figure sum– Does the marginal cost justify the marginal benefit?

A compromise– We could do the analysis for one or two years (1994 and

1999) and estimate intervening years using the ABI and/or the LFS

The credits

The idea: DCMS The work: Trends Business Research The groundwork: Kingston University,

Leeds University, NIERC, Comedia The researchers: Rupika Madhura,

Rajesh Gami

Appendix: the DET sectors

Creation Dissemination Exhibition Making All FunctionsAudio-visual 45,679 4,445 112 3,998 54,233Books & Press 3,233 15,861 19,095Performance 5,558 7,034 12,593Visual Arts 32,639 1,347 227 34,213All Domains 78,317 9,025 5,898 26,893 120,133

Number of firms in London

Number of workforce jobs in London

Creation Dissemination Exhibition Making All FunctionsAudio-visual 158,902 32,090 1,995 14,979 207,967Books & Press 11,958 107,748 119,706Performance 11,893 18,108 30,001Visual Arts 63,079 3,585 3,090 69,753All Domains 221,981 47,633 16,978 140,835 427,427