Back in 2021, Creative United was part of a team that investigated the contribution that creative freelancers make to the “economic, societal and place-based impacts of the creative industries”.
This was then set out in the report Mind the Understanding Gap: The Value of Creative Freelancers (Henry et al). Re-reading this report in light of Arts Council England’s (ACE) recently published Cultural Freelancers Study 2024, it is clear that the lack of freelancer-centred policy making continues to impact negatively on the people and organisations that make up our arts, creative and cultural sectors.
We know from our own annual surveys, business support programme participants and regular conversations with artists that making and building a sustainable livelihood often feels beyond the reach of many. Our data suggests it’s all too common for a creative to earn below £20,000 a year – as ACE’s study evidences – and we’d go further to say a significant proportion are earning less than £10,000 from their endeavours. Creative freelancers, who are highly imaginative, academically proficient, hard-working and often community-minded individuals, struggle against challenging hierarchies, entrenched and skewed systems of information gatekeeping, an apparent under-valuing of their products and services (by contracting parties and consumers alike) and (unfortunately all too often) crippling low self-confidence.
So, why do people become creative freelancers or artists? Our 2021 report highlighted some reasons, ranging from freedom and autonomy to their specialism simply not existing as a role within most arts organisations. Many appreciate being able to set their own timetable, which comes in handy when there are childcare considerations. For others, they simply want and need to be their own creative selves. However, ACE’s report makes clear the compelling reasons some people turn away, not just from being a creative freelancer, but from working in arts and culture altogether, with many citing stagnant and insecure income. This is a loss to our sector and difficult for the individuals having to make this decision.
In ACE’s report, the issue of the ‘overwork-underpayment’ bind was described and referred to a number of times, connected to insufficient rates of pay set down in contracts, work being increased or decreased without enough notice, and freelancers feeling like they have to take on each and every contract, even if it’s low paid, or they may not earn anything at all. All this takes a heavy toll on mental health and wellbeing. This is another significant risk to the sustainability of the cultural workforce.
We certainly see this as people sign up to our business support programmes, and we do all we can to provide them with the skills, tools and confidence needed to (re)set their pathway onto a more sustainable footing. Equally, via Own Art, we work hard, alongside our member galleries, to increase income for artists by growing the audience for contemporary art. Therefore, we fully agree with ACE report’s assertion that “[f]reelancers value organisations that offer supportive practices such as training opportunities, fair and timely payment, dialogue and care, networking events, and advocacy…”.
Finally, it seems pertinent to return to our 2021 report. In it, one creative freelancer summed up the challenge of building a sustainable livelihood simply and eloquently by saying,“[s]uccess is being able to pay your bills, survive financially while still pursuing the artistic endeavours that you want to.” The report went on to state that creative freelancers “…occupy an economic niche that has remained something of a policy blind spot”. So, this is a good time to set out again its recommendations for policies to support creative freelancers:
- Support the movement for conditions for good work – including in self-employment and freelancing.
- Develop income-supporting and employment schemes to help manage volatile income flows.
- Develop a system of adult skills and lifelong learning to support individual contributions to the economy and community.
- Focus on better business practices in the sector and its array of contracting organisations.
- Engage actively in debates about shareholder and stakeholder responsibilities of organisations to their employees, communities and supply chains.
- Actively support creative freelancers to participate in these debates, the structures in which they take place and subsequent actions.
- Provide appropriate business support and mentoring.
- Use appropriate funding models – such as longer duration fellowships, residences, funding for R&D&I projects, support for bidding etc.
- Invest in creative freelancer infrastructures, such as supporting home working, care provision, flexible working practices etc.
- Use of place-based policy to recognise, fully value and fully invest against the value generation of creative freelancers in support of place-based outcomes.