Economics speaks louder than words when making the case for UK culture

John Tusa's call for a unique language for the arts may limit the sector's ability to engage with Whitehall, argues Dave O'Brien
Doing sums
Using economics to value culture is a clearer way for the sector to speak up for itself, says Dave O'Brien. Photograph: imagebroker/Alamy

Discussions of how best to value arts and culture are currently the essential talking (as well as typing and tweeting) point of the sector, with debate limited to neither one art form nor one region of the UK. John Tusa's recent article on finding the right language for the arts has added much to the debate. However his demand for a unique language could limit the sector's ability to engage with Whitehall and the public.

My report for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) highlighted instead the need for central government to employ economic valuation techniques when making judgements about investment in the arts and cultural sector. These techniques include traditional economic valuation methods, such as preference-based surveys, as well as valuations based on the relationship between a given experience and its effect on an individual's subjective wellbeing.

The arts and cultural sector has been bedevilled by almost 30 years of attempts to prove its worth in terms of 'impact', both social and economic (with recent work looking into the intrinsic impact of participation). However, just because these attempts have been problematic should not lead us to abandon all social scientific techniques for understanding culture. This is for reasons both pragmatic and perhaps more ideological.

Using economics to value culture is sound for pragmatic reasons because this is how central government is supposed to appraise policy. Her Majesty's Treasury recommends the use of cost-benefit analysis for policy decisions, with economic valuation techniques for things that don't have prices associated with them. Decisions about arts and cultural funding therefore need to find ways to fit in with this way of making public policy.

One only has to look at the fate of the McMaster report, whose recommendations for peer reviews on artistic excellence have not been sustained within DCMS, to see the importance of engaging with the policy process in the terms preferred by the Treasury.

Measurement in the arts and cultural sector is difficult but this is no less true of any other area of public policy. How can we value a human life? What is the value of the environment? These difficult questions were faced by the Departments for Health and Environment during the 1990s, with similar objections voiced about the uniqueness of these respective policy areas.

However both areas have engaged with disciplines such as economics to construct useful tools for decision-making. These tools are not perfect and are subject to criticism, but they have made transparent and informed decision-making possible in areas where demand is high and resources are scarce.

Environmental economics is especially useful when trying to understand the current debate about culture. The natural world is often narrated in similar terms to the cultural sector with people discussing the intrinsic value or beauty of nature, but environmental economics has made it possible for previously underrepresented and undervalued aspects of the environment to be factored into public policy decisions and cost-benefit analysis.

This isn't to suggest we now have perfect environmental policy, nor that we should reduce our understanding of the environment to purely financial terms, rather that the use of economics has helped decision-makers understand the costs and benefits of any given policy in a clearer way.

Similarly, economics cannot capture all the benefits people derive from engagement with the arts but it can still go some way to helping clarify how people value the thought-provoking, enjoyable and life affirming experiences created by art and culture.

The discussion of the nature of art and culture is the most problematic part of the current debate. On the one hand, art and culture have become reified to the extent that it is almost impossible to compare them with other areas of public policy without the charge of, at best, misunderstanding or, at worst, philistinism. On the other hand, the limits of this reified vision leave the sector vulnerable to charges of unclear decision making, further entrenching art and culture's status as something not to be taken seriously across Whitehall.

At a time when the cultural sector is straining to prove its worth with questionable narratives of economic impact, better decision-making informed by methods approved by the treasury can only be a good thing. This is not about choosing between instrumental or intrinsic value to find a unique language for culture, but rather about the need to improve the information supporting central government's decisions.

In an age of reduced public investment, we must be open to making the case for our sector in the language understood by those making the decisions, while at the same time understanding the value voters attach to their engagements with the sector. This is neither cowardly nor philistine but a sensible and democratic response to the current issues facing art and culture in the UK.

Dave O'Brien is a lecturer in Cultural and Creative Industries at City University London. He specialises in cultural value and urban cultural policy and has a PhD in Sociology from the University of Liverpool. Follow him on Twitter @drdaveobrien
