SECTION 3: DEFINING CULTURAL AND CREATIVE ACTIVITY

CONCEPTS

An international standard for cultural and creative activity satellite accounts is yet to be established. The concepts of cultural and creative activity proposed for Australian satellite accounts have therefore been developed in consultation with the key stakeholders for which the accounts must be meaningful, whilst drawing heavily on the satellite accounts produced overseas, the statistical frameworks published by UNESCO and the European Commission, and the academic literature underpinning much of the international work.

Cultural and creative activity satellite accounts for Australia would encompass productive activities broadly defined as:

• ‘cultural’ in that they communicate symbolic meaning (e.g. beliefs, values, traditions), require human creativity as an input, and potentially contain intellectual property; or are
• ‘creative’ in that human creativity is a significant and identifiable input⁷.

Using these broad definitions, it is possible for productive activities to be both ‘cultural’ and ‘creative’, and indeed, these terms are often used in overlapping ways in academic and government circles. This is also true for industries, occupations and goods and services. Deciding specifically what is ‘cultural’, ‘creative’ or ‘both’ obviously requires a level of subjective judgement, and as might be expected, there are a variety of specific definitions in use in Australia and overseas. However, these share substantial common ground and their differences tend to be at the margin.

Figure 3 below shows the domains (groups of activities) identified as part of ‘cultural’ or ‘creative’ by Australian stakeholders consulted for the feasibility study. The figure is based on the concentric circles model used for cultural industries by Throsby⁸. At the centre are the domains considered to produce the highest degree of cultural and creative content in their output relative to the output’s commercial value. Of the domains in figure 3, zoos and parks are the only domains considered by stakeholders to solely belong to the ‘cultural’ segment, while fashion and computer systems are the only domains considered to solely belong to the ‘creative’ segment. The other domains are considered to belong to both segments.

The proposal for cultural and creative activity satellite accounts is to encompass, for all of the domains, the components shown in figure 4.


Component 1 has been the focus of satellite accounts for other nations. Some of these accounts have aspired to include components 2 and 3 but were not able because of data or methodological difficulties. Components 3 and 4 are included in the ABS’ non-profit institutions satellite account and represent an extension beyond the national accounts production boundary.


CULTURAL AND CREATIVE INDUSTRY SUPPLY CHAINS (COMPONENT 1)

Similar to the satellite accounts for other nations, industry supply chains for cultural and creative domains would cover:

• Creation – industries which are the origin of cultural and creative ideas.
• Production – industries which turn the ideas into cultural and creative goods and services.
• Manufacture – industries which mass produce cultural and creative goods and services from a master copy.
• Distribution – industries which transfer cultural and creative goods and services to final consumers.
• Supporting activities – industries considered to have a significant direct supporting role to the cultural and creative activities in other parts of the industry supply chains (e.g. education and training that develops performance artists).

The ABS uses the Australian and New Zealand Standard Industrial Classification (ANZSIC) (cat. no. 1292.0) to classify entities according to their predominant industrial activities. The most detailed hierarchical level of this classification is the ANZSIC class, of which 71 from the 2006 edition of ANZSIC have been identified as part of the cultural or creative industry supply chains. A full list is contained in Appendix 2.

The ANZSIC classes were identified with the aid of the 2008 edition of the Australian Culture and Leisure Classifications (ACLC) (cat. no. 4902.0) and industry employment ‘intensities’ calculated from 2011 Census of Population and Housing data. Industry employment intensities are the proportion of total employment in an ANZSIC class that is engaged in cultural and creative occupations⁹. These are highest for the ANZSIC classes identified with the ‘creation’ and ‘production’ stages of the supply chain.

Some of the ANZSIC classes identified in Appendix 2 cover significant amounts of activities that are not cultural or creative and do not directly support cultural or creative activities. An example of this is higher education (a supporting industry) that covers entities mainly engaged in undergraduate or postgraduate teaching, of which cultural and creative fields are only one part. These ANZSIC classes would need to have out-of-scope activities removed through an apportioning process, or else be excluded altogether to prevent the satellite accounts from being overstated.

The identified ANZSIC classes include those that have a direct connection with spending by tourists on cultural and creative activities. Tourism is not an industry, or good or service, in statistical classifications but the goods and services purchased by tourists, and produced by suppliers, are all part of the economic activity measured in the national accounts. The contribution of tourism to national accounts aggregates is drawn out in the ABS’ tourism satellite accounts and the same methodology used for those accounts can be used to draw out the contribution of tourism to cultural and creative activity.


CULTURAL AND CREATIVE OCCUPATIONS IN OTHER INDUSTRIES (COMPONENT 2)

Industry supply chains do not fully capture all cultural and creative activity in the economy. Cultural and creative activity is also carried out by people employed in industries outside the supply chains. An example is someone employed in the insurance industry to develop advertising content – the work activity they perform is cultural and creative in nature, even if the industry is not.

To measure the size of activity in non-cultural and creative industries, a variety of academic studies such as Higgs and Cunningham¹⁰, and the UNESCO and European Commission frameworks¹¹, propose using employment classified by both industry and occupation. As shown in figure 6 below, workers in the cultural or creative industries are said to be ‘specialist’ if they are employed in cultural or creative occupations and ‘support’ if employed in other occupations. Workers in cultural or creative occupations in other industries are said to be ‘embedded’.


It is the activity undertaken by embedded workers (including multiple job holders) that is proposed to be captured in the second component of the satellite accounts. The activity of specialist and support workers would be captured in the industry supply chains component described above.

The ABS uses the Australian and New Zealand Standard Classification of Occupations (ANZSCO) (cat. no. 1220.0) to classify occupations according to their skill level and skill specialisation. The most detailed hierarchical level of this classification is the ANZSCO occupation, of which 132 have been identified as cultural or creative using ANZSCO edition 1.1. A full list is contained in Appendix 3.

ANZSCO occupations were identified with the aid of the ACLC and occupation employment intensities calculated from 2011 Census of Population and Housing data. Occupation employment intensities¹² are the proportion of total employment in an ANZSCO occupation that is engaged in cultural and creative industries. These are highest for the ANZSCO classes whose skill specialisations are closely associated with the ‘creation’ and ‘production’ stages of the industry supply chain.


VOLUNTEER SERVICES TO CULTURAL AND CREATIVE INSTITUTIONS (COMPONENT 3)

Volunteers are people who willingly give unpaid help to an organisation or group. This type of activity is prevalent in cultural and creative domains where people, for example, give their time unpaid as art gallery guides, as members of museum management boards, or to collect donations from the public.

Although the national accounts production boundary excludes all types of unpaid labour, it can be appropriate to include volunteer services in the boundary of a satellite account. The ABS has previously done this as part of the non-profit institutions satellite account, which includes a substantial number of non-profits from cultural and creative industries. On this basis volunteer services are proposed as an inclusion in the cultural and creative activity satellite accounts.

The ABS’ non-profit institutions satellite account is based on the United Nations’ Handbook on Non-profit Institutions in the System of National Accounts¹³. The Handbook recognises that as volunteer labour is critical to the output of non-profit institutions and their ability to produce a level and quality of service, it is important to capture and value this activity in a non-profit institutions satellite account.


NON-MARKET OUTPUT OF MARKET PRODUCERS (COMPONENT 4)

Non-market output is a term used in the national accounts to describe goods and services supplied free or at prices that are not economically significant. Non-market output is excluded from the national accounts production boundary for institutions that offer the majority of their production at economically significant prices (these institutions are known as ‘market producers’).

Non-market output of market producers is, however, included in the ABS’ non-profit institutions satellite account based on the United Nations’ Handbook. The Handbook argues that if an adjustment is not made to value any non market output produced by market units, then the value of the output of market non-profit institutions is understated, as such units can produce significant amounts of output which are supported by charitable contributions or other transfers that is not evident in sales revenue.

Such an adjustment is proposed for the non-profit institutions within the scope of cultural and creative industries to avoid their output being understated. The results of the non-profit institutions satellite account for 2006-07 suggest the practical impact of this on cultural and creative activity satellite accounts may be small or nil.

Stakeholders are invited to comment on: the proposed scope of the satellite accounts, particularly components 2-4; and the industries and occupations used to define cultural and creative activity (these are listed in Appendices 2 and 3).

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⁷ For example, see D. Throsby (2001), Economics and Culture, Cambridge University Press, p4; United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (2008), Creative Economy Report 2008, p10, <http://unctad.org/en/Docs/ditc20082cer_en.pdf>; and European Commission (2012), p42.
⁸ D. Throsby (2001), The Economics of Cultural Policy, Cambridge University Press, p26.
⁹ Based on H. Bakhshi, A. Freeman and P. Higgs (2012), A Dynamic Mapping of the UK’s Creative Industries, report for the Nesta Operating Company, <http://www.nesta.org.uk/library/documents/Dynamic_mappingV12.pdf>.
¹⁰ P. Higgs and S. Cunningham (2008), ‘Creative Industries Mapping: Where have we come from and where are we going?’, Creative Industries Journal, vol.1, no.1, p7-30, <http://portal2.ntua.edu.tw/~dc/files/F04_3.pdf>.
¹¹ UNESCO (2009), p40 and European Commission (2012), p148.
¹² Based on H. Bakhshi, A. Freeman and P. Higgs (2012).
¹³ United Nations (2003), Handbook on Non-Profit Institutions in the System of National Accounts, <http://unstats.un.org/unsd/publication/seriesf/seriesf_91e.pdf>.