Independent Culture Fair Work Task Force Report and Recommendations

Annex E - Key Issues for a Fair Work Charter

Introduction and context

This Culture Fair Work Charter is a reflection of 18 months of work conducted by the Culture Fair Work Task Force. Rather than a Culture Fair Work Agreement (CFWA) for the cultural sector, this charter will outline key themes and suggested evidence to demonstrate fair work.

Given fair work is an emerging set of conditions for all workers, this charter seeks to capture the emerging needs of the cultural sector workforce with a look towards developing data that contextualises the needs of an evolving workforce.

From the growing demands of a self-employed workforce, the impact of AI on workers and the increasing need to provide opportunities for those most marginalised experiencing even more barriers to entry to, and retention in, the cultural sector than ever before; this charter aims to communicate the commitment of employers and workers to removing barriers, increasing accessibility and engaging in fair working practices.

Rather than tier this charter to denote a hierarchy of status for employers that agree to this charter, each section seeks to provide an opportunity for employers to grow and change. Taking into consideration the varied sizes, scales, structure and the diversity of needs across arts organisations within the cultural sector, this charter seeks to provide baseline guidance for organisations to follow for minimum standards of practice as well as suggestions for good and best practice.

Charter Policy Context

Works of art are one of the UK's top 30 export goods. The creator economy, which currently is worth £200 million is set to reach £500 million in the next five years. According to the House of Lords Library, the creative industries contributed £124 billion in gross value added (GVA) to the UK economy in 2023. This is equivalent to 5.2% of the GVA of the whole UK economy. 7% of all creative industries jobs are in Scotland. Crucially however, as the Task Force has discussed at length, this does not adequately take into account the freelance workforce.

Diversity Within the Cultural and Creative Industries:

According to the Equal Media and Culture Centre for Scotland in the February 2025 report on ‘Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: women in media, creative and cultural sectors in Scotland’ ‘In publishing, museums and galleries, for example, women make up a high percentage of the workforce, but are not as well represented in senior positions, with women of colour particularly underrepresented.

In film and television, meanwhile, women are better represented than men in off-screen jobs, but make up a minority of writers and directors, and are more likely to be concentrated in ‘feminine’ coded positions like costume and wardrobe (Creative Diversity Network 2023, Kreager and Follows 2018).

However, intersectional data gaps remain, and many studies and reports continue to focus on the UK as a whole, rather than provide Scottish-specific data.’ Additionally, proposals in the UK Government ‘Pathways to Work’ Green Paper earlier this year^[87] saw reductions in funding for DWP programmes Access To Work and PiP, which have had an enormously detrimental impact on the disabled and working class cultural and creative industries workforce. There cannot be fair work without fair access to work. The cultural sector must be supported to address barriers, develop robust accessibility practices and ensure reasonable adjustments in the workplace are part of any fair work framework for employed and freelance workers.

These changes have already been implemented seeing the removal of access workers and wider access support including technology and systems that enable disabled workers to engage in their creative work and practice. According to PEC’s ‘Good Work Review’,

“There are also prominent differences in rates of underemployment for different types of Creative workers. Men are twice as likely than women to be working a part-time role because they are unable to find full-time work. Similar differences are observable between younger workers aged between 16 – 34 and workers aged 35+. Workers from ethnic minority backgrounds are also significantly more likely to be part-time because they are unable to find full-time work, as are those working in smaller firms, those that are self employed workers and Creative workers in the Devolved Nations.’ (PEC, p: 31). Impacts on well-being include, ‘Self-reported wellbeing is slightly below average in the Creative Industries and Creative workers report greater levels of anxiety than average. Wellbeing is lowest, and anxiety highest, amongst disabled workers and people of Black/Black British origin.’ (PEC: p. 57).

Poverty Wages:

For example within the publishing industry ‘ALCS reported in 2019 that for authors – workers for whom writing occupies at least half of their working life – typical earnings were less than £10,500. Recent figures suggest that this number has fallen by up to 40%’ (Parry, 2022).

50% of freelancers in literature and publishing earn below £20,000 a year, according to the Illustrated Freelancer’s Guide by Heather Parry and supported by Creative Scotland. According to PEC’s ‘Good Work Review’ (2023), ‘[c]reative employees generally report that their jobs are less secure than those employed in other industry sectors. Job security was also lower in the Creative Industries pre-pandemic, between 2016-18.

Insecure work was most commonly reported amongst those employed in Museums, galleries and libraries and Music, performing and visual arts.’ Also, ‘Underemployment is more common in parts of the Creative Industries, with the proportion of part-time workers suggesting they would like a full-time job higher than average across the economy (16% and 12% respectively) and rising since Covid-19.’ (PEC: p.30).

Unfair Compensation and Support for Freelancers

According to PEC’s ‘Good Work Review’ (2023), ‘[I]n the Creative Industries, workers are twice as likely to be self-employed than is average across the economy (26% compared to 13% of the UK workforce). ‘ The Scottish Trade Union Congress (STUC) titled ‘Freelance and Forgotten: A Report on Worker Exploitation in Scotland’s Creative Industries’ reveals 69% of freelance respondents to their fair work survey have experienced issues relating to late payment for work. 33% percent have not been paid for freelance work undertaken. 59% have experienced unclear or unreasonable expectations when undertaking freelance work. 73% rarely have a clear or accessible complaints and appeals process when undertaking freelance work. 57% have rarely or never undertaken freelance work that presented fair royalties and/or intellectual property allocations. 46% have lost work or pay after getting ill or having to take maternity or bereavement leave. 32% have signed a Non-Disclosure Agreement or similar contractual clause asking them not to talk about work. 53% have seen or experienced bullying, harassment, or sexual harassment. 34% think there are equal pay issues at work. Only 6% describe working conditions as good. 44% describe them as bad and 50% describe them as ok. Only 31% said they are always paid the ‘rate for the job’. 11% said they are always paid less while 58% said they sometimes get paid the rate, but not always. Only 13% of respondents said their employer had a staff forum. Of these workers, 57% did not think it was independent of management.

According to Creative UK, ‘Today, the sector employ an estimated 2.4 million people, of whom approximately 28% are self-employed – double the economy-wide average; according to The Film and TV charity, this rises to approximately 50% for the film and TV industry.’

Freelancers experience: ‘Poor access to finance and credit, due to irregular income and lack of conventional employment records; vulnerability to late payment and inequitable contract terms, with few practical avenues for redress; limited social protection including barriers to pensions, parental leave, and sick pay; reduced access to skills and workforce development programmes, many of which target salaried employees or larger businesses; and fragmented representation, with no single government body advocating for or coordinating freelance-related policy.’ Additionally, ‘Freelancers make up more than half of the UK film and TV workforce, but more than a third of those have said they will look elsewhere for jobs in the next five years (University of Reading, 2025). The gaming industry, worth over £4.5 billion to the UK economy, relies heavily on freelance developers, artists and designers – with 12.7% of the workforce operating on a freelance basis (TIGA, 202410) versus 6% of the total workforce (IPSE, 202411). 69% of cultural freelancers are engaged exclusively or primarily as freelancers, whilst 29% combine freelancing with ed positions (Arts Council England, 2024).

According to the ‘Illustrated Freelancers’ Guide’ written by Heather Parry and illustrated by Maria Stoian, there is around a 30% annual increase of the number of freelance or self-employment in the UK as of 2024. 55% of freelancers have done work they have not paid for. A third have stopped working for a client who has paid late. 23% of freelancers continue to work for businesses despite outstanding invoices and 10% say they do nothing when a client pays late. 41% of clients hiring freelancers consistently pay late, which impacts their ability to pay bills, rent and survive.

Especially given many freelancers operate with precarious cash flow and little savings. ARC Stockton Arts Centre provides a useful ‘Policy for the Employment of Freelancers’ while resources like the ‘Illustrated Freelancer’s Guide’ and the STUC ‘Freelance and Forgotten’ report offer solutions to better support freelancers in the creative industries in Scotland.

Culture and Creative Industries Fair Work Charter Components

Security

• Fair Pay, Fair Remuneration and Fair Working Conditions: Abiding by Minimum Income Standards For Artists and Arts Workers. A living wage for artists, creatives, writers, musicians, craft makers and all types of creative practitioner will enable them to work on their creative work rather than having to supplement their income with part-time work, freelance work and other seasonal work, which has a negative impact on their mental health and well-being by earning poverty wages from their creative income because that work is neither valued nor properly compensated and individual workers often have a precarious relationship with the benefits system.
• No Poverty Wages for the cultural sector and creative industries. Across multiple sectors within the creative industries artists, creative and creative practitioners are living on poverty wages. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation suggests the current minimum income standard for the United Kingdom is £28,000 a year. No job or pro rata opportunity should be advertised at a rate lower than this for basic survival.
• Employers, partners and freelance workers alike will cost their services based on fair remuneration in line with the minimum income standard for the United Kingdom taking specific consideration into Scottish needs from rurality to commuting needs for fair access to fair remuneration for workers. This includes rates set by the Living Wage Foundation for the Real Living Wage, which should always be prioritised over the Living Wage. This includes use of the Living Wage Foundation’s Real Living Hours for hourly work and rates of pay.
• Fair working conditions include protecting all artists, cultural sector workers, and creative practitioners in the sector by following basic health and safety standards. It also includes include addressing access to, and retention in, work and reasonable adjustments for disabled people to increase entry and retention of disabled cultural workers. The Scottish Governments commitment to the social model of disability^[88] and the overarching legal framework of the Public Sector Equality Duty^[89] jointly create a framework to support fair access.
• This includes safeguarding measures for health and safety which includes measures to ensure consent is involved at every stage of the process of engaging in work. No workers nor creative practitioner should be put in a position where they are refused future work or blacklisted for questioning health and safety standards in a workplace setting. Employers and project managers will need to respond to queries and concerns within a reasonable timeframe in order for work to be completed rather than replacing that worker for raising legitimate concerns by not responding in a timely manner in order to push them out of their work contract.
• Any disputes or poor working conditions will be heard by an organisation’s senior management team and board. There needs to be accountability for disputes and issues that arise responded to in a timely fashion. Best practices include reporting, an investigation, a paper trail and openness to external expertise to make sure an organisation or company is not investigating themselves for poor practice, which presents a conflict of interest that could result in a miscarriage of justice as a result of a lack of due diligence in these matters. Where an issue is raised by an individual, group or collective that is not a member of staff, there will be a process in place for those individuals to be afforded the same consideration as a staff member.
• Pay accountability with best practice including financial transparency, which includes transparency about funding and budgets that extends beyond members of the public being able to access accounts on Companies House (including the CIC regulator) or OSCR. Organisations and companies that are publicly funded, should be transparent about their funding, income, and rates of pay including full and part-time salaries. No company or organisation should advertise roles below fair rates of pay and remuneration that is industry standard as set by union pay rate and rate cards.
• Adjudication and dispute resolution, a best practice approach is the recommended set up of an adjudication panel made up of cultural sector members to hold each other accountable for disputes, especially where disputes impact freelancers, self-employed and contracted workers with no other route for adjudication. The intention is for this adjudication panel to enable the sector to be self-regulating and support best practice within the sector/industry that allows for trends in poor practice to be identified and eradicated moving forward to support future sector development.
• Honouring agreed minimum standards on freelance contracts that are negotiated by the freelancer and informed by standard rates set by unions, guidance from the Living Wage Foundation and Joseph Rowntree Foundation for a living wage that covers costs.

Fulfilment

• Valuing Creative Work and Creative Jobs: Paying Humans and Prioritising Artist-Led Work.
• AI should not replace creative jobs, but can be used as a tool to facilitate work especially for disabled and neurodivergent arts workers, artists, creative practitioners and creative industries workforce members AI can be used as an accessibility tool to enable reasonable adjustments.
• Leading with consent and giving people the right to opt in to their data being used rather than scraping personal data for creative work. By adopting the Australian, Danish and Californian model and exploring ways of users’ data to be protected, we can avoid situations were artists personal data and creative IP is being taken without their consent within the Scottish creative industries and cultural sector.
• Best practice employed to pay all workers, contractors, collaborators, artists and creative practitioners fairly by avoiding replace paid work opportunities with volunteers or any form of unpaid labour by making sure to advertise for roles adequately or simply not hire a worker, creative or freelancer if there is not enough budget to pay them.
• Rate and pay transparency by encouraging rate and pay transparency as cultural sector workers, artists, creative practitioners and freelancers, we can firstly ensure that access costs do not fall unfairly on the individual and then avoid people being paid inequitably which will close the gender pay gap, Black and POC pay gap, disabled persons’ pay gap and a range of other pay gaps that marginalised groups experience.
• Valuing creative work means valuing the artist and creative practitioner. We do this by avoiding cutting corners by exploiting emerging artists and practitioners to take on work more cheaply, paying people fairly for preparation time and to attend meetings, providing people with adequate budget for their creative process and always covering transport costs.
• Valuing creative works means enabling people to engage in their creative work by supporting people with reasonable adjustments as required under the Equality Act 2010, which can include making venues physically accessible, providing information in accessible formats from BSL interpretation to closed captioning and accessible information digitally via websites format for alternative text and colour contrasted to allow blind and partially-sighted used to access it. This includes encouraging proactively asking about access or working with access statements or use of ‘access riders^[90]’ for all staff, workers, collaborators and artists engaging with companies and organisations within the creative industries.
• Valuing creative work includes robust safeguarding policies, a dedicated safeguarding specialist board member and safeguarding practices that include processes and procedures to support artists and all workers when someone in a position of power like a board member, director, line manager, or project manager has behaved in ways that go against a zero tolerance policy for bullying, harassment or abuse.
• This means having a process in place whereby a conflict of interest arises in these instances, so that a worker, creative practitioner, artist or collaborator is safeguarding from reporting poor working conditions or bad behaviour if the person they report to is the perpetrator. A named person within the organisation that can hold a board member, senior manager, line manager or project manager must be put into place to prevent abuses of power from taking place in a creative work setting.
• Valuing creative work means prioritising sector development opportunities for creative and cultural sector leaders, which ensures there is a culture of cultivating talent, supporting emerging leaders in the sector and prioritising a diversity of cultural sector and creative industries leadership to future proof the industry from brain drain as well as creative work that is geared towards singular audiences because there is no diversity of experience within the sector’s and industry’s leadership.
• Employing best practice for migrant and international workers by making sure not to engage in unnecessary visa checks that are not mandated by the Home Office when employing migrant workers. These checks slow down payment, delay hiring and put additional stress on workers that are already vulnerable within the creative and cultural sector workforce. Seek advice rather than avoiding working with visa status arts workers, artists and creative practitioners because forgoing the opportunity to work with these artists, creative practitioners, collaborators and makers creates additional barriers to entry to the creative industries and cultural sector in Scotland.
• Support existing and encouraging further development of sector support programmes like Creative and Cultural Skills ‘Fair Access Sector Support Package’, Creative Scotland and PRS Foundation’s Power Up, the Scottish Documentary Institute’s ‘Bridge the Gap, Screen Skills Screen Skills Training and Opportunities’.
• Prioritising the creative and cultural workforce, we pledge to source work from human beings wherever possible in order to build capacity within the cultural sector workforce, encourage new arts and cultural sector workers, as well as maintain the integrity of cultural work and practice in Scotland. This includes protecting intellectual property rights and artists’ work at all times. Where it is more cost effective not to hire a human being to complete work, we ask ourselves at what cost? Those costs are human, economic, ethical, and environmental costs to the arts worker as well as the sector as a whole.
• The protection of workers intellectual property and ideas. The current threat to the creative workforce and creative economy includes the pirating of arts workers, artists, and creative workers' intellectual property to train artificial intelligence and machine learning without these human owners’ consent. There is a role for artificial intelligence and machine learning, but this role cannot be predicated on theft.

Sustainable Careers

Supporting sustainable careers and creative practice which promotes health and well-being in the creative industries utilising strategies, policies, approaches and ways of working, centred on the current Scottish Government adoption of the social model, that incorporate best practice including:

• Embedding health and well-being initiatives for all including contracted workers, temporary workers, freelancers and self-employed collaborators Opportunities to access mental health and wellness opportunities for all workers, creative practitioners, collaborators, creatives and artists
• Removing urgency culture within the cultural sector to prevent false deadlines, working at unsustainable paces and working without reasonable timelines. Adjusting deadlines and setting a working pace in the sector that everyone can follow, but working collectively across sectors to adjust expectations. This removal of urgency culture makes working in the sector more sustainable, honours the natural rhythm of the creative process and enables marginalised people particularly neurodivergent and disabled workers to access the cultural and creative industries.
• Setting more realistic timelines and supporting a more fair working culture that does not exploit nor stress workers. Though funding constraints and timelines exist, working towards not undervaluing creative labour by using realistic timelines and removing pressure to work to unreasonable deadlines set by organisations and companies working with funders is possible.
• Making sure work the actual cost of producing work is accounted for allowing for less exploitation, cutting corners and unsustainable working practices. This ensures that work is not undervalued in funding bids and applications, so the actual cost of producing work is accounted for allowing for less exploitation, cutting corners and unsustainable working practices.
• Embedding trauma-informed, trauma-sequenced and mental health first aid training is embedded in companies and organisations training budgets to ensure all people are supported at every stage of engaging with the cultural sector and creative industries from workers to temporary contracted workers audiences, users, and members of the public. This is essential for the long-term sustainability of the sector, worker retention, inclusion and sensitive ways of engaging with society more widely. This is best practice that goes beyond safeguarding and is pre-emptive rather than reactive, which will ensure more equitable, fair and safer outcomes for all involved in the creative industries and cultural sector. Embedding a culture of addressing accessibility practices that attracts, supports and retains workers and builds environments, policies and practices informed by universal design and accessibility practice that will benefit disabled and neurodivergent workers and, thus, ultimately everyone.

Respect and Opportunity

Fair Opportunities for all Artists, Arts Workers, Creative Practitioners and Members of the Creative Industries

• Opportunities for professional development and CPD available to all workers including contracted workers and self-employed workers Freedom from harm, bullying and abuse within the workplace, supported by zero tolerance policies for bullying and harassment
• Accountability at board level with boards providing fair work strategies for organisations and companies that include fair recruitment strategies, anti-oppression strategies and use positive action to recruit members of staff from marginalised backgrounds, prioritising those groups underrepresented in the creative industries.
• Mandatory training on unconscious bias, disability equality, rights and anti-ableist practices, anti-racism, becoming an LGBTQIA+ inclusive organisation and feminist organisation that is led by people with lived experience of these forms of discrimination and expertise in EDI training.
• Embedding HR best practices to ensure that recruitment and progression within the industry is fair and equitable by making using of non-exclusionary recruitment practices which are accessible in all formats, promoted widely using existing networks within the sector for marginalised artists and arts workers, plus recruiting for roles compensated fairly, so that working class communities as well as other marginalised communities can afford to work in the sector.
• Expertise developed and policies embedded for parents, carers, care leavers and marginalised groups that are inclusive with specific emphasis on opportunities for flexible working, compressed hours and explorations of four day working weeks.
• For board governance and recruitment, given these are voluntary roles except in the case of community interest company boards, implementing options to make board roles accessible to the widest audience by using accessible measures to host virtual board meetings, run board meetings at times that are more accessible to parents, carers, other marginalised workers balancing multiple jobs/income and young people in the industry.
• Modelling best practice by providing opportunities for new board members to be supported through recruitment schemes that target marginalised groups. These schemes and processes should include annual training, opportunities to shadow board members and making sure, if it is a member-led organisation, to ensure members can progress to board level roles with mentorship and support.

Working for better Rights

Working for Better Rights for Freelancers and Self-Employed Artists and Cultural Practitioners

• Advocating for the national collection of data on working conditions of freelancers and self-employed workers in the cultural sector that combines cross-sector data, mapping and research conducted across the industries in a central location to support an understanding of the needs of freelance and self-employed workers in the cultural and creative industries in Scotland.
• Advocating for a change of legal status of self-employed workers which would enable these workers to access more workers’ rights, which includes a right to safe and compliant working environments when under contract or employed for work with an arts organisation, collective, institution, venue, or body.

Ensuring Fair Work Equity

Given the intersectional impact of work precarity for marginalised artists and arts workers, particularly black and people of colour, LGBTQIA+, gender non-conforming, working class, disabled, neurodivergent, carers, care-experienced, ethnically diverse, and workers amongst many other protected characteristics, we prioritise paying artists and arts workers from these groups fairly and equitably.

• We seek to support these workers into arts roles with support that enables the removal of barriers to entry to the cultural workforce with inclusive recruitment strategies, EDI action plans, representation at board level and on senior management and with retention action plans that enable marginalised workers to thrive. The provision of more accessible and equitable practices is not a one size fits all approach so, while plans should work to remove systemic barriers and move towards a more accessible sector based on universal design principles, making provisions and reasonable adjustments for individuals must also be systemised to enable fair work.

• Data on the impact on specific demographic groups needs to be collected and monitored nationally to understand the full quantitative impact of the gender pay, racial pay, disability pay, and other intersectional pay gaps as well as statistics on the make-up of the creative and cultural workforce.

Effective Voice

Fair Work Ethics

An ethics of fair work requires a working practice of respect within the cultural workplace and workforce, which includes transparency around contracts, agreements, dispute resolution mechanisms, and power dynamics within the workforce. This includes mechanisms for effective voice that are accountable from trade union recognition and representation to transparent mechanisms for workers including freelancers and self-employed workers to hold senior management or partners to account.

• Effective voice forums that enables workers including contracted workers to hold management, boards, companies and organisations accountable for decisions that impact them, which could include a worker-led forum or form representation that is respected, minuted and has power within an organisation, company or institution. Such forums must be accessible and not exclude anyone based on access requirements.
• No Union Busting under any circumstances which means unions have access to negotiate contracts, represent members in disputes and get involved in the development of organisational policy. The identity of Union members should never be asked for nor revealed at any risk to individual Union members. Only union representatives are to be made known to employers. No discouraging workers of any contract type from joining unions nor asking them which union they have membership. This goes against the rights of workers of all types and should not be a practice that is undertaken under any circumstances.
• Support of artists-first licensing which enables artists to license their work and enables artists to reach wider audiences with their work. This enables licensing only with an artist's approval and embeds a fair, transparent payment model endorsed by artists for artists.
• Support for creators to retain control of their work, especially in an environment of the increasing use of AI and emerging generative technologies.