"Creativity is the key to national prosperity"

Why creativity in business matters

UK businesses can stay ahead of their global rivals by drawing on the country's world-leading design capabilities, says former Design Council Chairman George Cox's Review of Creativity in Business.

Then Chancellor Gordon Brown, who commissioned the report, backed all its recommendations, aimed at raising business awareness of how creativity can boost performance and creating more demand for creativity and design through business support services and government incentives.

The report also sets out to broaden the creative skills and insight of tomorrow's business leaders, engineers and technologists, and use the massive spending power of public procurement to generate more innovation from businesses

Sir George's recommendations include:

• A national support programme, modelled on the Design Council's work with businesses, to help SMEs use design
• A review of whether strategic design work should be eligible for R&D tax credits
• Centres of excellence in higher education for multi-disciplinary courses combining management studies, engineering and technology and creative disciplines
• A new approach to public procurement to encourage suppliers to be more innovative
• Raising the profile of the creative industries through a national network of design centres.

Gordon Brown welcomed all these recommendations in his Pre-Budget Review in December 2005.

In December 2006, the then Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, Alistair Darling, asked the Design Council to report, by February 2007 on progress made towards harnessing the UK’s creative capabilities to support the nation’s productivity, performance and sustainability.