A response from Sir Nicholas Serota
After sending our open letter on the future of arts funding and the need to support freelancers and independent artists, we received the following reply from Sir Nicholas Serota.
Dear Leila,
Thank you for your thoughtful open letter.
As you say, the future of England’s culture sector is at a critical moment. I wholeheartedly agree that freelance creatives and independent artists form the backbone of our cultural sector, and we must do everything we can to support them.
You rightly highlight that cultural freelancers are frequently underpaid. To this end, as a development agency, we expect organisations we fund to adhere to our guidance on Fair Pay and Supporting Practitioners. We also provide resources for Individual Practitioners on our Expectations when working with organisation in addition to our own Consulting with Creatives and Cultural Practitioners Policy.
We fully appreciate the critical role freelancers and artists play in local placemaking across the regions and in our Priority Places. We are proud of our investment in a range of Strategic Funds, Project Partnerships, National Portfolio Organisations and Investment Principles Support Organisations who collaborate with and empower individual practitioners to produce their best in service to the cultural sector. Notable examples include:
a-n The Artists Information Company provides artist advocacy for over 37,000 members, provides bursaries, insurance, a legal and tax helpline, and skills training resources for visual artists and freelancers.
The Own Art scheme ran by Creative United, which supports artists and craft makers to generate sales and income by facilitating interest free loans for anyone to buy and collect contemporary art.
Our investment in nurturing imaginative artists to work with the newest technology that has enormous potential to benefit the creative industries and other areas of the economy and society. In partnership, we’ve supported the launch of Immersive Arts an ambitious new programme designed help advance the role of artists and cultural organisations across the UK in contributing to the development of immersive storytelling.
The Digital Culture Network, led by a team of Tech Champions, who support the development of digital skills for both individuals and organisations, providing specialist support in digital strategy, digital marketing, social media, eCommerce, data analytics and insight, search engine marketing, websites, content creation, CRM and ticketing, and email marketing, completely free of charge.
We fund a variety of different studios and production spaces for their artistic or education/outreach programmes. It is important that we advocate for affordable workspace provision which is the biggest barrier for artists accessing studio space.
Arts Council England launched Developing your Creative Practice (DYCP) in 2018. The dedicated fund for individuals provides life-changing opportunities, enabling applicants to apply for up to £12,000. Since DYCP began, we’ve funded 8,125 applications and invested a total of £79,612,733.
Between 2016/17 to 2024/25 the total amount of National Lottery Project Grants awarded to 14,889 individuals was £239,388,545.
We know there is more to do, and we are committed to building on our foundation to amplify this important work.
We look forward to continued dialogue with you and other freelance network members and will take stock of fresh insights from our Cultural Freelancer study so that individuals remain valued at the heart of our cultural ecology.
In this vein, I’m delighted to hear you are joining our pilot Freelancers Advisory Circle. Your input will be invaluable to help to test and refine our thinking as we move forward with scoping our plans to support individuals including co-producing a Freelancers Handbook as a sector resource of good practice.
In the spirit of transparency, we're happy for you to share this response on your website.
Once again, thank you for your insights and wishing you success in all your endeavours.
Best wishes,
Sir Nicholas Serota CH
Chair
Arts Council England
Thank you
Thank you to our community for helping us to amplify this message through social media, email, word of mouth and news articles. We are stronger together.
