This little known QUANGO has been getting itself in the news recently with its claim to have brought £50 million inward investment to Yorkshire since 1983. Really?  This must be good.  

The Yorkshire Screen Commission (YSC) is an advertising and marketing service for local film crews.  It encourages production companies to use Yorkshire locations and local staff. Its unusual feature is that it is free to both advertisers and customers. Instead of user fees, 16 local Yorkshire councils and the European Union’s Regional Development Fund, stump up for it.

Now why are the taxpayers of Yorkshire supporting this particular industry? They surely do not want to encourage film crews to clog the streets of Haworth any more than they do already, or to persuade yet more couch potatoes to drive their cars to Holmfirth where "Last of the Summer Wine" was filmed. 

Don’t misunderstand me. iGreens have no principled objection to films being made on location. So long as they use private land and facilities, the owners can judge whether the environmental costs are worth the damage. However, filming in remote locations and in public spaces is different. Although it may not be feasible to fully charge these costs to the companies, it is crazy to subsidise them.

So what’s going on?  Why are local politicians diverting money from the education and police service? I know the answer. The politicians meet film stars and get publicity for themselves, which they use to claim that they brought employment to the region, and to buy the votes of yet another special interest group.

Oh, and where did the £50 million inward investment figure come from? There’s a clue on the YSC website where they tell production companies what they want in return for the free service;

"What we do ask, however, is that where applicable we receive a credit, and a completed Economic Impact Form which assess the 'local spend' of production shooting in the area. Our Economic Impact forms are very simple and will simply ask you to detail what money has been spent on locations, facilities, crew, etc."

So that's it! The famous £50 million inward investment is no more than the total spend of those companies who took advantage of the free service. No account of whether they would have come anyway, of employment removed from other areas, or of the external costs of the filming. This is not economics. It is pork barrel politics as usual.