Arts and Creative Industries: Freelancers and Self-employed Workers

A major argument in favour of the appointment of a freelance commissioner is the lack of good data about a workforce of a diverse nature. As ALCS says,

“a dedicated commissioner would help to relay expert information and feed into government policies that will impact this valuable proportion of the workforce”.

One of the clichés of the freelance world for the wider public has been the tacit acceptance of the trade-off between freedom and security. Yet, if the trend in all work is towards more flexible working arrangements, something that many workers are demanding, is that trade-off acceptable any more in the modern world? Freelancers have very few of the employment rights and protections that standard employees have. The Independent Society of Musicians and BECTU ask that shared parental leave and statutory sick pay are extended to the self-employed. BECTU asks that Section 44 of the Employment Rights Act 1996 be extended to strengthen protection for health and safety. Job sharing, term-time working, career breaks and sabbaticals are other areas that BECTU believes should be looked at. Without effective protection, there is the concern that bullying and harassment will remain unaddressed because of the imbalance of power between freelancer and client. ISM’s second Dignity at Work report found that 88% of self-employed musicians did not report the discrimination they suffered, even when this was sexual harassment, often for fear of losing work.

Another area of concern focuses on tax and benefits. I believe my noble friend Lord Colville will elucidate concerns around IR35. One area that the Government could address immediately is the universal credit minimum income floor, which shuts out many actors and others because of irregularity of payment. I tackled the DWP on this a year ago in a debate on the Social Security (Additional Payments) Bill. I now address it to DCMS, which perhaps might be able to convince the DWP of the importance of these concerns. Since then, new research by Equity and the University of Warwick demonstrates that, of nearly 700 members, 41% of those subject to the MIF had gone without food or utilities and 5% had had to leave their homes. Furthermore, many self-employed people have been excluded from the cost of living payments by the MIF.

As actor Julie Hesmondhalgh said in an interview with the Guardian last month when talking about having once put on plays by novices, including Rufus Norris, in a basement:

“That would not have been possible if we were living under the benefits system that exists today, that absolutely refuses to accept artists as having a ‘proper job’”.

Heidi Ashton of the University of Warwick says:

“In the past, people from working-class backgrounds relied on social security in the early stages of their careers … due to the precarious nature of freelance work. Without this safety net people without other financial means are either leaving the sector entirely or face losing their homes”.

There may never have been a golden age for freelancers, but the experience under UC contrasts significantly with the former, more flexible social security system. I personally remember how useful the original enterprise allowance scheme was. Equity is rightly calling for the abolition of the MIF, but we also need a fundamental, wide-ranging review of the way in which the current benefits system affects the self-employed.

Similar concerns affect all freelancers who may also experience downturns in pay or work opportunities, which may be temporary, such as the dearth of current opportunities for unscripted TV work. If skills are not to go to waste, we need to look more closely at how we can support freelancers under these conditions, rather than simply leaving it only to the marketplace.

Another hugely significant area is payment. Late payment is the bane of freelancers, affecting many working in different areas, from artists and musicians to journalists and others. Payment rates themselves are a huge concern. A recent survey by Industria finds that visual artists who worked on a freelance basis on projects in publicly funded galleries earned on average £2.60 an hour for their work, compared to a minimum wage of £10.42. Although shocking, this is not surprising when one considers the significant cuts to government investment in the arts that have taken place over a long period, inevitably reducing pay levels for freelancers in particular but of course meaning devastating under-financing of the hugely important subsidised arts sector. The past 15 years have seen the Arts Council’s grant in aid shrink in real terms by 47%. Between 2009 and 2019, local authorities have seen cuts to funding of 37%, meaning that the Arts Council has taken on responsibilities that it did not previously have.

I have yet to look at the new sector vision in detail, but we need a vision for the arts as well as the already commercialised end of the creative industries—they are not quite the same thing. It is good if extra money is being found to help save our grass-roots venues, but my first impression is that a large part of the arts—for instance, the visual arts—is left out of the plan. Part of the importance of the arts is that they inform the wider creative industries. Increasingly, there is a growing sense that arts production should be valued for its innate worth over its commercial potential—however welcome that is to the Treasury. That is something that the Minister might ponder while he listens to the London Symphony Orchestra performing Messiaen tonight.

Much of my plea so far has been for greater support of freelancers, but I also want to strike a cautionary note: support is not the same as uncritical promotion. ISM has drawn attention to the worryingly increasing casualisation of some sections of the creative workforce; for example, visiting music teachers, who are moved to zero-hour contracts. The threat to BBC musicians is another case in point. I firmly believe that the BBC Singers should remain as properly salaried employees of the BBC. There are a number of reasons for that, including, as my noble friend Lord Berkeley of Knighton has pointed out, the question of who retains artistic control—the independence of which, I argue, is most secure, as it has proved to be, in a publicly-funded organisation free of commercial or other external interests.

There is no clear channel for dialogue between freelancers and government. The Creative Industries Council contains no representation by unions or societies which advocate for individual artists or creatives. A freelance commissioner would help to bridge that gap.

There is much I have not covered in detail: Brexit’s curtailing of opportunities for musicians and others; the skills shortage; the huge importance of arts education for the next generation of practitioners; the effect of the ongoing closure of art spaces, including music venues, which one hopes this extra money will alleviate; the disappointing closure of the University of Brighton Centre for Contemporary Arts, which feels too much part of the narrative of the degrading of the arts in higher education; and the structure of the workforce itself in terms of class background and gender. I look forward to some of that detail being filled by other speakers.