ABSTRACT
A more direct example of the Thatcher government’s determination to open the state sector to commercial competition, the Education Reform Act of 1988 was not obviously a matter of cultural policy but its provision for the creation of City Technology Colleges (CTCs) did lead to the BRIT School for Performing Arts and Technology, which opened in Croydon in 1992. In 1998, Chris Smith, Britain’s first ever Minister of Culture, published Creative Britain, a collection of the speeches he had made in his first year of office, when his big decision had been to establish a Creative Industries Taskforce to “map” the United Kingdom (UK’s) cultural sector. The urgent task for such municipal authorities was to find new jobs following the collapse of the industrial sector. Investment in creative industries was not just a strategy for regeneration; it could also boost the local economy through tourism and inward investment.
