Culture, Media and Sport CommitteeWritten evidence submitted by Paul Kaynes, West Midlands Creative Programmer, London 2012

I would like to make a submission to the Culture Media and Sport Committee inquiry regarding the Creative Economy.

Over the past four years there has been a large and diverse programme of arts and cultural activity staged by the cultural and creative industries in the West Midlands as part of the Cultural Olympiad and London 2012 Festival. This programme has had a number of benefits and impacts on the area including:

£32.8 million of net economic impact as a result of visitors spending money at events and resources attracted into the West Midlands from outside the region.

£11 million of media coverage secured for the programme, much of it in national and international markets, for a programme of outstanding artistic events in the West Midlands.

A total of 2.9 million attendances at events, around 1 million of which were by people aged under 25.

Further information on the programme, together with a short document which summarises the findings earlier in the summer can be found here.1 A further, more detailed document will be published next week and we will send this to you when available.

The programme demonstrated that large scale, UK-wide high quality cultural programmes of this kind can offer high levels of return on investment economically, in terms of social inclusion—because of the volunteering and high levels of active participation offered—and for young people, especially in providing them with practical skills. The UK-wide nature of the programme has been crucial as it provided a high level of public awareness and engagement which couldn’t have been achieved by local events.

October 2012