The first (very) general results concerning the companies supported by the Creative Industries Fund are out. The figures provided are unclear, and relevant aspects are overlooked.
The figures relate to just 70 of the 133 projects that got support since 2013. That is, barely over half of them. Nonetheless, the government decided to publish some results from that sample. That might be justifiable. In the absence of further clarifications, however, is hard to understand.
The reason invoked was: not all have yet submitted their reports. Nothing was, surprisingly, said about the causes or meaning of such absence. Consequently, it is a statement that raises more questions than it answers.
Are the remaining 63 at fault? If they are at fault, an explanation about the known or possible causes was necessary. That nobody ventured an explanation and nobody asked is perplexing. If they are not at fault, and no deadlines for submission have been broken, why not wait until the ‘sample’ is complete? What has justified, if anything, the need to come forward now, with partial information?
The main point in the presentation was that more than 60 percent of the companies that submitted their reports are not making any profits. The stress is on what has not been achieved, which is unexpected. The language is imprecise, and there was no attempt to elucidate other meaningful aspects.
More than 60 percent means how many companies? The figure is defined, no need to be vague. The explanation for the (presumed, but not quantified) losses is not any clearer: many of them started their activity recently. Again, what does that mean? On average, how long have they been operating and how much are they losing? Are the results in line with the business plans that were approved? If not, why? Were there other relevant consequences? Nothing was said, it seems, to illuminate these issues.
If I remember correctly, there were indications that the evaluation procedures would give priority to proposals able to provide results in the short term, if not in the first two years. Did the evaluators overestimate the potential of the submissions that were selected, carried away by possibly unrealistic projections? If so, is it possible that other applicants who were more realistic in their forecasts were penalized?
Then, there is nothing to be said about the presumably ‘almost forty per cent’ that are already making profits? Not a single word about their achievements? It is difficult to understand that silence.
