Response to Scottish Affairs Committee
Inquiry into the Creative Industries in Scotland
1. Equity represents 39,953 performers and creative personnel working across the UK’s creative industries. Our members include actors, singers, dancers, variety artists, stage managers and stunt performers who work across various sectors including theatre, light entertainment, television, film, video games and the music industry.
2. In Scotland, we have 2,501 members living in Scotland and many members who work in Scotland but do not live here.
3. The Creative Industries in Scotland are a discrete but interrelated grouping from the UK as a whole. In almost all areas of the Creative Industries, London is the dominant location but technology and modern communication are enabling more widely dispersed activity. The Creative Industries are a mixture of commercial and publicly funded activities.
4. Increasingly public sector agencies who invest in the Creative industries are looking for proof of returns for that investment. In the talent field that can be problematical because talent can be highly mobile, especially headline talent. In a Scottish context, more analysis needs to be done to establish how effective public investment has been in the promotion of talent (below the headline level). Equity would like to see more emphasis placed on the importance of promoting Scottish based or Scottish educated talent.
5. Culture is for everyone
91 % of adults in Scotland engage in culture. 80%, or four out of five, attend a cultural event or place of culture and 78 per cent participated in a cultural activity in a 12 month period.[1]
A survey in Glasgow showed that 92% of residents agree that heritage is important for the country, 80% agree that it is important for their local area and 85% agree it is important for them personally.2
6. The UK currently has a number of competitive advantages in the creative industries. According to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, the creative industries now account for economic output of at least £60bn per annum. This translates to more than 8% of UK GDP and puts the sector ahead of both construction and tourism in terms of its contribution to the UK economy.
7. The UK is a world leader in content production, including public service broadcasting, theatre, film and music. The UK video games sector has had a number of successes and has the potential for further growth. Creative content is also a key driver of other sectors, such as the digital economy. Cultural experiences, particularly the live arts, also underpin the UK’s ability to benefit from tourism.
8. The factors which will sustain the UK’s competitive advantage in the creative industries are those which will enable creative organisations and businesses to continue to produce the best content in order to meet demand at home and abroad. The key interventions which will promote conditions for success are: the retention of a highly skilled and valued creative workforce, sustainable funding for the arts, investment in public service broadcasting, a strategy for the film and video games industries, a fully functioning intellectual property regime and support for the grassroots of the creative industries including live entertainment.
The creative workforce
9. The availability of a highly skilled and innovative workforce is a core component of the current and future health of the UK’s creative economy. In 2010 nearly 9% of the UK’s businesses were found to be in the creative industries (a substantial proportion of which are SMEs) and 2.3m UK workers were employed in the creative economy. A number of issues must be considered if the creative industries are to provide sustainable and rewarding employment as well as deliver economic benefits.
10. Successful businesses and organisations are driven by individual creators, artists and performers, who currently operate in an employment environment characterised by a strong degree of flexibility, but no real security through the provision of basic employment rights. Performers work in an unusual employment environment, due to the fact that they will often work for more than one employer during a relatively short period of time. Due to their range of performance and creative skills they may also work in a number of different roles across different areas of the industry.
11. The key issues that affect performers and creative workers include itinerant patters of work, job insecurity and a lack of respect for core employment rights such as the National Minimum Wage. In the UK, many Equity members are engaged to work in a subordinate employment relationship (i.e. not genuinely self-employed), but do not benefit from the security of employment protection rights, family friendly employment rights, redundancy or unfair dismissal rights. Such inequality of provision is unhelpful, as it fails to provide the necessary support for a vulnerable workforce in an industry already characterised by insecurity.
12. Clearly it is important for the entertainment industry to preserve a degree of flexibility with respect to the mobility of its workforce and the short-term nature of engagements. That is something that is expected and understood by performers and creators, many of whom value their own flexibility to work for different employers on projects that are temporary by their very nature. Nevertheless, the flexibility to engage workers on short-term projects should not undermine the rights of all economically dependent workers to a full range of employment rights.
13. Performers and other creative workers are often very low paid, despite working in challenging environments. For example workers in the independent arts sector and variety artists are frequently engaged to work in prisons, schools, and with community groups. Arts organisations which are in receipt of public funds in order to undertake this work do not necessarily engage workers on best practice Equity ITC (Independent Theatre Council) contracts. In some instances companies do not even pay the National Minimum Wage. Many fringe and small-scale theatre productions in receipt of public funds are also characterised by low pay/no pay.
14. Equity has also been working to ensure that arts organisations and education establishments recognise their obligations under the National Minimum Wage Act. Currently film schools and many other organisations are able to rely upon section 44 of the National Minimum Wage Act for non-payment of the NMW to performers, due to the fact that they are registered charities. Equity does not believe that this is the intention of the Act and has been encouraging film schools in particular to use the union’s own model agreement for student films.
15. The economic impact of the Creative industries in Scotland is growing in significance. Culture alone provides approximately 174 000 jobs in Scotland, 6.6% of the total jobs figure.[2] The arts and creative industries in Scotland have an estimated economic impact of £3, 690 million Gross Value Added (GVA).[3]
16. This impact can be local or national. For example Pitlochry Festival Theatre contributes between £11 and £13million to the Tummel Valley economy[4] whereas the Edinburgh Festivals contribute approximately £140million to the wider Scottish economy[5]
17. Local authority support for the creative industries is essential as is shown by the two examples above.
18. Any significant cuts to public funding for the creative industries will inevitably place the sustainability of many organisations at risk. This will impact on the employment, training and development opportunities available to actors, performers and creative professionals, whose contribution to the creative industries drives the success of the Scotland’s cultural offer nationally and internationally.
19. Funding the arts and culture is not currently a statutory duty for local authorities. Equity believes that this should change. Equity, along with sister unions in the STUC, Culture Counts and many organisations in the Creative Industries are lobbying for a change to a specific Outcome for Culture within the Scottish Government’s National Performance Framework.
Other areas of interest that are raised during the course of its inquiry
20. Equity continues to be concerned that due regard for equal opportunities, particularly with regard to gender balance and portrayal are long over-due in the arts sector and is campaigning vigorously for change. Research undertaken for the International Federation of Actors[6], of which Equity is a member, found that women in the arts consistently earn less than men across all age categories and that age and gender are a disadvantage when it comes to job opportunities, a disadvantage further compounded by being from an ethnic minority. Best practice for tackling this problem exists in other European countries such as Norway[7], where organisations in receipt of government funding are required to do a yearly audit on gender balance. It is vital that employers and arts funding bodies are made aware of their obligations under the Equality Act 2010.
Public Service Broadcasting
21. One of Equity’s key objectives is to ensure that all broadcasters can continue to contribute positively to producing original British programming as much as possible in the digital age. Producing the broadest possible range of audiovisual content is in the interest of audiences and secures the UK’s competitive advantage in this field.
22. The public service tradition in broadcasting has given the UK a reputation for producing programming of the highest quality – content that not only enhances this country’s culture but which is also makes a major economic contribution through overseas sales and licensing. For example, the BBC generates over £1bn through worldwide sales. For these reasons Equity strongly believes that the UK must commit resources towards ensuring plurality across the spectrum of public service content.
23. Equity members have been concerned for some time that all of the UK’s nations and regions and nations should be able to take an active part in the creative industries and that work opportunities should be available throughout the UK. Currently performers who are not based in London and the South East of England often struggle to find enough employment to sustain a career in the entertainment industry and many are forced to relocate to London in order to access opportunities. Employment in film and television production in particular is heavily concentrated in London and the South East.
24. Equity is also concerned that a large number of regionally-badged programmes are actually being produced by London based companies, who may run auditions or make casting decisions in London rather than in the nations and regions. Moreover a number of regionally-badged programmes are also produced or partly produced in other countries including Wallander (filmed in Sweden) Robin Hood (filmed in Hungary) and Merlin (external scenes filmed in France). Equity has been campaigning to persuade Ofcom to incorporate a meaningful ratio of “on screen talent” into their definition of what constitutes an out of London production. At the moment “on screen talent” is specifically excluded.
25. Broadcasters should be encouraged to support this greater spread of commissioning and explore long-term methods of developing and sustaining regional production in parts of the country that are not represented on screen. One of the best ways in which this can be achieved is by the establishment of returning drama serials. The fact that this genre of production has a distinct long-term benefit for the local production infrastructure means that it should be subject to particular encouragement.
26. The role of the BBC as a cornerstone for UK made content is, however, vital for the sustainability of the UK’s creative industries. Various factors, including the downturn in advertising revenue experienced by other PSBs during the recession and the historical lack of investment by the majority of digital and satellite channels in original drama, children’s and comedy programming have had a huge knock-on effect on the employment prospects and job security of performers and other creative workers in the sector.
27. Equity, along with the UK’s other entertainment unions, have argued for some time that there should be an examination and consideration of industry levies to support original UK content. There are a number of potential forms for such a levy, including those on recording equipment/blank media, retransmissions, non-PSB broadcasters and new media. Such industry levies could offer the opportunity to use significant new income streams to address the PSB funding gap.
28. As a world, UK national and Scottish broadcaster, the BBC plays a crucial role in our economy, both as an employer and an exporter of goods. It also acts as a standard bearer for the audio-visual sector in terms of quality, diversity, and innovation. The BBC also has an important role in sustaining the independent production sector. Without the BBC’s investment and commissioning, the UK’s production base, which also serves the UK film industry, would not be as strong as it is today.
29. This is only possible because the BBC is supported by unique sources of funding, including the licence fee and its commercial operations. Licence fee payers rightly expect to receive good value for money in terms of high quality programmes and new innovations and services responding to developments in technology and the wider media industry.
30. A particularly good example of competitive advantage and value for money is BBC Radio, which has demonstrated that the unique system of funding alongside public service obligations can result in the production of high quality programming not available anywhere else. Radio drama and comedy, which is only found on the BBC, gives young writers and performers a chance to build their careers, take risks and develop their skills, as well as employing the proven skills of mature actors and writers.
31. The BBC is the largest employer of actors and performers in the UK and provides a wealth of training opportunities for creative workers. Because of the investments it makes across a diversity of disciplines, including drama, comedy, entertainment, as well as factual programming, the BBC is able to provide decent jobs and engaging work for Equity members.
32. However, there is an imbalance in what the BBC raises in Scotland and what it spends. The Charter renewal process is bringing focus on this issue as the BBC itself is debating its role in Scotland. From a Scottish point of view, the BBC could learn much from what has happened in both Northern Ireland and Wales where major investment in drama production is proving successful.