Blog: The Great Risk Transfer - a view from the culture sector

by Kathryn Welch, Director, Culture Counts

Kathryn Welch, is Director of Culture Counts, a network supporting the arts, heritage, and creative industries in Scotland. Kathryn explores the relevance of the David Hume Institute’s Great Risk Transfer research to the culture sector and wider society.

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The Great Risk Transfer: employment and financial wellbeing report explores the changed relationship between employers and employees. For Culture Counts, a network supporting the arts, heritage and creative industries in Scotland, many of the concerns raised feel resonant to our sector.

A financially strained funding environment, combined with the long-term effects of Covid and the cost of living crisis, means many cultural organisations are struggling to create the conditions for fair work. Workers in the sector - particularly the high numbers of freelance workers and low-paid staff, bear the brunt of these conditions.

A freelance workforce

Freelancers are a hugely significant part of the creative workforce. Creative Scotland reports that 41% of creative workers in Scotland work on a freelance basis.

This is not a low-skilled or casual workforce but represents people of all levels of seniority, in vital-to-the-sector functions including technical, production and creative roles. Whilst a good number of these individuals relish the flexibility and variety of self-employment, the Cultural and Creative Freelancers’ study notes that many freelancers face a lack of opportunity to move into permanent or salaried jobs, which are simply unavailable in their job roles. Instead, freelance contracts are typically available on a project-by-project basis, shifting job precarity from employers onto the individuals they hire. 

Freelancers are not currently included in fair work legislation and 60% of freelancers are not members of a union, leaving them without much of the protection afforded to salaried staff. As a consequence, freelance artists are less likely to report feeling supported in their work than employed artists working in similar settings. And this support is much-needed; creative freelancers report extremely long hours, low pay, limited training opportunities and the necessity of undertaking unpaid work to maintain relationships and complete projects.

The Big Freelancer Survey 2024 carried out by Freelancers Make Theatre Work, presents “a workforce that is at breaking point due to unsustainably low pay and long hours”. Their research found that a third of freelancers reported average hourly earnings below the National Living Wage for that period; wages that would be illegal in the context of a PAYE job. Furthermore, almost a fifth of respondents reported working an average of 50 or more hours per week over the past year, which is over the legal limit defined in the Working Time Directive.

The Great Risk Transfer’s concerns about pensions are magnified amongst the freelance workforce: just 17% of self employed workers, and 13% of self employed women workers, participate in a pension scheme. Research found that the precarious nature of their work adversely affects the mental health of creative freelancers, exacerbated for many by a (financial) reluctance to take time off for sickness or holiday - bouncing unpredictably from full-on, intensive contracts followed by periods of stress and anxiety associated with lack of work. The Campaign for the Arts has raised concerns that the recent increases in many Employers’ National Insurance contributions following the UK budget may incentivise employers to move current employees into self-employment, placing workers against their will into these highly precarious working conditions.

Whilst creative freelancers face particular risks, all is not rosy for those in employed roles either.

The creative and heritage sectors have long been reliant on low-waged staff, especially in vital roles such as front of house and box office teams.

For creative roles, unpaid internships and very poorly-paid entry level roles have been an established route into certain career paths. There are social class distinctions here; unpaid internships have long been the privilege of those who can afford to work for free. Managing the challenges of chronically low-paid but creatively rewarding employment is, ironically, fast becoming available only to those with a financial cushion. Those who simply cannot afford to stay in very low-paying roles are increasingly leaving the sector altogether.

The Sutton Trust, for example, found that 43% of classical musicians have attended an independent school, compared to 7% of the general UK population.

The Heritage Alliance cite research from UK Heritage Pulse in their analysis of the impact of cost of living issues on staff working in the heritage sector, finding that stress levels within the sector are continuing to increase, with more than one in four heritage workers now reporting that they feel uncomfortably stressed on most days. They cite museum staff taking steps such as avoiding workplace social events, working from home to cut commuting costs, and taking less annual leave or time off in lieu in order to manage their heavy workloads.

The connection drawn by the Great Risk Transfer between financial precarity and organisational productivity feels particularly important.

For the creative sector, there is an existential risk created by its reliance on low paid staff. In an environment of increasing costs of living and entrenched low pay, even for experienced and skilled staff, it becomes increasingly difficult for employees to remain in the sector, or for workers from low income backgrounds to consider joining.

This is doubly problematic: organisations lose key people, skills and capacity, and the sector as a whole becomes less reflective of the diversity of Scotland’s people, backgrounds and experiences.

Concurrently, our creative institutions become less able to do what they do best - a recent Museums Galleries Scotland report finds that organisations faced with redundancy decisions are prioritising ‘keeping the doors open’ via front of house roles.

Instead, the report finds, museums and galleries are losing positions in curation, education, learning and participation roles - with long-term consequences for museums and galleries’ ability to preserve stories and support meaningful engagement with our past; what MGS calls “the ability to care for and share the stories of the collections we hold for the people of Scotland”.

For many creative and heritage organisations, volunteering is a mainstay of their operations, with volunteers contributing their time, passion and skills for the benefit of others. With narrowing economic margins, people may well have less capacity to contribute. The 2023 Scottish Household Survey found that the Scottish volunteering rate had dropped to 18%, a drop of four percent from 2022, and eight percent lower than pre-Covid. 

Scotland’s geographies bring additional financial issues for this low-paid creative workforce; concerns shared with other sectors such as hospitality. The heritage sector, in particular, is defined by sites across rural areas, where prospective employees face challenges associated with lack of affordable public transport, high costs of housing and the harder impacts of the cost of living crisis to rural areas.

#EvenHereEvenNow, a manifesto created by artists across Scotland’s islands, highlights higher energy costs, fuel poverty, digital connectivity and limited transport as challenges that disproportionately affect islands-based artists.

The risks of precarious and low-paid employment are not borne equally across Scotland’s creative sector.

The Equal Media and Culture Centre for Scotland found that 60% of part-time roles in the arts sector are held by women, and that almost three times the number of women to men cited care responsibilities as a major barrier to their work in the arts.

Reflecting on the impact of the pandemic to the sector in terms of reductions in job opportunities, Chi Onwurah MP, Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Creative Diversity, highlighted that “without action, we risk exacerbating inequalities further in the creative industries and an entire generation of talent – the future of the sector – could be lost”.

This is a matter of inclusion and equity. For the creative industries it also represents a loss of creative talent, a narrowing of our creative ambition and a reduction in the breadth and diversity of our creative output - a very particular rendering of what the Great Risk Transfer describes as “productivity”.

The narrowing of participation in culture and heritage, whether in paid work or in volunteering, could mean that these sectors - which are important forums in which society experiences and understands itself - in turn reduce in creativity, in inclusion, and ultimately in relevance. 

Organisational challenges

At Culture Counts, whilst we echo the overall concerns highlighted by the Great Risk Transfer, we recognise the challenges facing employers and organisations in the cultural and creative sector.

This picture is not a battle between exploitative employers and vulnerable workers.

Many creative organisations are tiny (a mapping exercise by Scottish Contemporary Art Network found that 84% of arts organisations report an annual income of less then £425k), and dependent to a very large extent on public funding.

Many employers actively champion aspirations to improve working conditions in the sector, and are acutely aware of the importance of widening access to creative careers, creating sustainable livelihoods in the arts, and supporting the wellbeing of staff.

Creative and cultural employers consulted for Culture Radar’s Review of Fair Work prioritised actions to help them resolve low pay and precarious work, support workers most impacted by Covid lockdowns, invest in workforce skills and improve employee wellbeing.

Initiatives to prioritise Fair Work are directly connected to a funding landscape that has been stagnant - and in some cases declining - over a period of years and decades. As wages - rightly - rise due to increases in the Minimum and Real Living wages, many organisations report a direct impact on their financial stability - leading to operational deficit and/or having to use reserves to meet the cost of increased wages.

For some organisations, adapting to provide increased wages has come at a cost of job security for employees, with employers unable to provide stability for workers due to being unable to commit to longer term contracts thanks to their own annual funding settlements. Whilst financial risk is being transferred from employers to employees, it’s also important to note that the chain continues upward, with three year funding settlements for Scottish Government core funded cultural organisations promised in the 2021 SNP Manifesto, but as yet unrealised. 

The experience of the arts, heritage and creative industries largely echoes that of the Great Risk Transfer more broadly, sharing concerns in terms of employee wellbeing, inadequate pensions, financial precarity and its impact on productivity and society in Scotland.

The sector-specific contexts for the creative sector, notably a low-paid and largely freelance workforce, the importance of a diverse workforce for a vibrant creative output, and the challenge of managing standstill and short-term funding commitments, add further food for thought to the findings.

At Culture Counts, we echo DHI’s recommendations for further steps to embed the principles of Fair Work and Living Pensions into the future of the creative workforce - whilst noting the particularities of the sector that add further nuance and challenge to the equitable and sustainable implementation of such initiatives.

Culture Counts looks forward to being part of these conversations going forward via our role on the Scottish Government’s Fair Work Taskforce. We call for a wide-ranging consideration about the whole picture of investment in culture, encompassing not just Creative Scotland and Scottish Government funding, but philanthropy, trusts and foundations, Local Authorities and earned income. Investment in culture fundamentally affects the current and future workforce, and the possibilities for Fair Work for all.

Culture and the arts cannot become solely by rich people for rich people - a broader, fairer and more sustainable sector enriches us all.

Ends

Sharing thumbnail image - Pianodrome (2018). Photo: Andrew Downie. Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society.

Blog: The lifeblood of our economy is in peril

5th December 2022

Guest blog from Shona McCarthy, Chief Executive of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society, reflecting on the latest Understanding Scotland economy insights and what they means for the arts, culture and society.

Shona wants to see more people supporting and advocating for the arts. Here she explains what we stand to lose if the sector is not better protected during these turbulent economic times.

Pianodrome (2018). Photo: Andrew Downie. Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society.

In hard economic times it often feels as if people think investment in the arts is an unaffordable luxury.  Our sector is almost always the first to experience disinvestment in times of crisis but often the first to be looked to when thoughts turn to rebuilding hope, optimism, prosperity.  The Edinburgh Festivals are a fine example of this belief in the power of the arts to boost the national mood and forge cultural links internationally. They were established, by the British Council amongst others, to heal the human spirit and reconnect people across Europe, after the horrors of the second world war.

A thriving and inclusive creative sector is not a luxury or added extra in the UK, it is an essential part of the best of who and what we are, and is vital economically, socially, internationally, and culturally.

In 2019 the creative industries contributed £115.9bn in Gross Value Added (GVA)  to the UK economy. That’s 6% of the UK’s total GVA, more than the combined contribution of aerospace, automotive, life sciences and oil and gas and equivalent to 70% of the GVA generated by the financial and insurance sector.

Our sector also created jobs at three times the UK average employing two million people across the UK and supporting a further 1.4 million jobs across the supply chain. So the arts and creative industries are a route to opportunity, employment as well as life enhancement.

Our social and cultural contributions are similarly immense. Great strides have been made in recent years to address inequity in the arts and creative sector. We have worked hard to remove barriers to those who have historically found it most difficult to find a foothold or even aspire to a career in this field. There is still much to do in terms of where the arts are positioned in our schools and education system, to fully understand the transferable skills gained from early exposure to the arts that enhance employability, creative thinking and success in any sector.

We are known the world over for our cultural identities and freedom of speech and expression, for the innovation and originality of our voices in the arts. Creativity, whether expressed through music, literature, performance, visual art or other activities, forms our biggest soft power asset.

We cannot afford to lose these assets built over many years. Having just about survived two years of pandemic-related disruption, we have to face the evidence that audiences are not planning to return in sufficient numbers in 2023 to generate the income needed to cover all the costs that are rising so rapidly. There are no cultural recovery funds to draw on. Our sector is teetering on the edge and, therefore, risks becoming increasingly unappealing as a career choice.  Without support, belief, investment and recognition of our value, the arts sector is set to lose vital talent and skills in the short-term, and become the privilege of only those who can afford it as either practitioners or audience members for the longer-term.

We underestimate the value of our creative output and the sophistication of our artistic expression at our peril. The Edinburgh Fringe is located here but this is not an issue just for Edinburgh or even just for Scotland.  The Fringe is a global marketplace for the whole of the UK, bringing some 63 countries to our stages as well as programmers, curators and screen commissioners from around the world to source new talent and work.

The Fringe is not like any other festival. It is to the performing arts what Venice Biennale is to visual arts, Cannes to film, and South by Southwest is to music. It has been going for 75 years, and with our sister summer festivals, our combined ticket sales are on a par with the Fifa world cup or an Olympic Games, but happen every single year, with nothing close to the investment.

So this is a plea for support. The creative and cultural sector is a critical part of our economy, but more importantly says more about who we are as people, than any other sector. If there is anything you can do to advocate, champion or directly invest in our cause, it would be very much appreciated.

 ENDS

 Link for further information on the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society 

Sharing thumbnail image - Pianodrome (2018). Photo: Andrew Downie. Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society.