This paper by the Writers Guild Great Britain Scottish Committee has been sent to the Scottish Government Culture Secretary Fiona Hyslop, the Scottish Parliament CTEEA Committee Convener Joan McAlpine and Creative Scotland Chief Executive Iain Munro. It proposes an original and innovative way of using some of the £107 million funding for the benefit of freelance and employed creatives, their communities and economic recovery in Scotland. It is hoped that WGGB Scotland and the other creative trade unions will have early discussions about these and other proposals with those tasked with making decisions on the allocation of these funds.

The £97 million new arts and heritage funding provided by the UK Government to the Scottish Government, together with the Scottish Government’s £10 million performing arts relief fund, creates a unique opportunity to address the long-term problem of inadequate arts funding and the precarious incomes of creative artists in Scotland. Those self-employed artists who do not qualify for any of the existing payment schemes must be prioritised in the allocation of this £107 million funding.

The problem:
How to support the huge freelance and employee creative industries workforce in literature, theatre, screen, music, games and visual arts, practically and quickly, with benefit to Scotland’s economic recovery?

Aims:
Short-term:
To support freelance creative industries workers currently falling between the cracks and employees in the creative industries.
Long-term:
To give creative industries workers a financial foundation for developing sustainable work in accordance with the Scottish government’s commitment to Fair Work and Fair pay and fair work policies agreed with the creative industries unions and to enable creative industries workers to build stronger working relationships in their community.
To nurture creativity, innovation, flexibility, practicality and community integration from the sector that does it best.
To be as diverse and inclusive as possible in terms of the social, personal and geographical spread of creative industries workers participating.
To reverse the top-down allocation of sparse funds from organisations.
To support the development of realistic and practical creative-commercial livelihood models.
To empower freelance and employee creatives typically reliant on subsistence income and trickle-down gig work.
To encourage more integrated two-way and cross-sectoral thinking towards resilience and sustainability.
We propose an innovative three-strand solution that goes beyond hardship and emergency funding, to help build a resilient future for creative industries freelance workers and employees.
It also proposes a way to integrate other sectors with valuable knowledge which is currently not reaching the rest of the Scottish economy effectively. This opportunity and training resource will encourage two-way traffic and benefit other sectors, too.
This proposal prioritises productivity, leadership and productive relationship and partnership-building across industry sectors, for multi-way impact around Scotland.

Creative Sustainable Livelihood Fund
A direct artist-led work grant to creative industries/arts freelance workers. This will be commensurate with COVID-19 employee awards and reach self-employed and zero hours workers unable to access those funds. Artists will not be in competition with organisations for this fund.

Creative Commissions Fund
Targeted employer-led commissions of freelance and employed workers in the creative industries to develop new work in the projected themes outlined below.

Knowledge Transfer Workshops
Online recorded knowledge transfer workshops from knowledge-bearing Scottish Government-funded organisations as a cross-sectoral training resource for creative industries workers and others.

Creative Sustainable Livelihood Fund

We see ‘repurposing for resilience’ as a cornerstone of sustainable livelihoods for the freelance workforce for the future, reflecting the Scottish Government’s policy of being “as flexible as possible with grant conditions for the sector so they can be repurposed for resilience” (Fiona Hyslop to Federation of Scottish Theatre, 22 June 2020).
We propose that to support faster recovery, specific funding should be speedily allocated to individual freelance creative industries workers (not organisations, employees, or trade), to help them develop workstreams in cross-cutting, cross-industry sector areas, including wellness, education, tourism, heritage, diversity, inclusion and small business.
“Repurposing” isn’t entirely accurate, as many, if not all, creative industries workers do this kind of work already. However, it is currently filtered down to them from a variety of organisations. Their services are bought in on one-off “gig” contracts which don’t add up to a sustainable livelihood. They need to apply, gain the work, win the work against competition, and deliver it, which often takes months and is wasteful of many people’s time. Simply put, it’s not worth it.
So we propose allocating project funding to grassroots workers to help them take ownership of their work in their local settings, and develop their own microbusinesses with Intellectual Property, product and service creation which have potential for ongoing income. Intellectual property rights in the work produced would remain with the individual creative workers and would help their self-employed creative business to flourish.
This will allow them to get moving quickly and release them from the need to apply to organisations and wait for organisations to hire their one-off services. Currently, Creative Scotland grant funding is not aligned to the creation of sustainable creative livelihoods for workers. In fact, the not-for-profit imperative specifically rules out sustainability thinking in many cases. This targeted fund will fill a significant gap and make a substantial and immediate difference here.
The process for allocating funding should be as simple as possible, involving a one page proposal and mini-CV, which are peer reviewed by artists who are paid for their time and work at professional rates of pay as agreed with appropriate trade unions.
In particular, this support can get creative workers involved quickly in their communities, subject to Covid-19 health safeguards, with immediate benefits for wellness, local connection, identity, diversity, active residents and stronger links for resilience – the ‘triple bottom line’ impacts favoured in economic impact studies.
It goes without saying that it will also mitigate the devastating financial and health pressures on an already precarious sector.

Creative Commissions Fund

As part of the investment to aid recovery in existing arts venues of all kinds, these organisations would be required to commission new work related to the themes outlined below from individual freelance and employee creative industries artists of all kinds through an open call for proposals. A socially diverse, inclusive and geographical spread throughout Scotland of these commissions is essential.
The pay for commissions should also be at professional rates of pay as agreed with the appropriate trade unions.

Knowledge Transfer Workshops

We propose that organisations already well supported by the Scottish Government are asked to provide specific recorded online knowledge transfer workshops to cascade their learning and make it available and accessible to creative industries freelance and employed workers. Currently, these organisations typically deal with only the business and/or trade sectors – people working at scale. This will help to cascade their knowledge and expertise to freelance and employed individuals who then have the opportunity to put it to use in developing their sustainable income.
This would involve repackaging existing knowledge with specific reference to freelance and employed creatives. We do not envisage additional costs.
Scottish Enterprise or Creative Scotland/Creative Industries could be asked to provide webspace for these aggregated resources.
We propose that Creative Scotland-funded organisations such as Scottish Screen and Publishing Scotland are asked to share their leading-edge industry, production and marketing knowledge with the creative freelance and employed workforce.
Scottish universities with marketing and innovation departments and students could also be asked to contribute.
We also propose that the Scottish Qualifications Agency be asked to fast-track a freelance and employed creative industries route to online workshop accreditation.

Creative Sustainable Livelihood Fund Themes

We propose that this fund is allocated to creative industries freelance workers to enable them to create experiences, services, products and intellectual property (IP) aligned to themes, subject to Covid-19 health safeguards:
Wellness 
Examples: community workshops, entertainment programmes, online resources.
Aligned to: NHS Scotland, SAMH, Lapidus, Mental Health at Work, Care Sector etc.
Knowledge transfer workshops to be delivered by: NHS, Care Sector, local councils.
Tourism and Heritage Examples: walking and cycling interpretation, publications, games, activities, pop-up performance with a local interpretation or community interest angle, Gaelic and Scots language and culture.
Aligned to: Visit Scotland, local visitor centres, local trades, Community Trusts, social enterprises, shops and venues, Bòrd na Gàidhlig, Scots Language Centre, Federation of Scottish Theatre.
Knowledge transfer workshops to be delivered by: VisitScotland, Publishing Scotland, UHI, Business Gateway, Federation of Small Businesses, Bòrd na Gàidhlig, Scots Language Centre, Federation of Scottish Theatre.
Education 
Examples: Skill shares, taster sessions, online workshops, teaching packs, publications.
Aligned to: Education Scotland, Young Enterprise Scotland, FE colleges.
Knowledge transfer workshops to be delivered by: Education Scotland, local FE colleges and universities, Scottish Qualifications Agency.
Ecological and Climate Emergency Examples: education in loss of species, carbon reduction, rewilding, grow your own, community renewable energy projects, green recovery.
Aligned to Scottish Natural Heritage, Education Scotland, local authorities, Community Trusts.
Knowledge transfer workshops to be delivered by: Scottish Natural Heritage, Education Scotland, local FE colleges and universities.
Diversity and Inclusion Examples: education in the European Convention on Human Rights, anti-racism, gender equality, sexual orientation, religious toleration.
Aligned to Education Scotland, local authorities, Universities, organisations active in diversity and inclusion.
Knowledge transfer workshops to be delivered by: Education Scotland, local authorities, Universities, organisations in this field.
Creative Knowledge Transfer Examples: Skill shares, online workshops, taster sessions for local small businesses and FE colleges.
Aligned to: Scottish Enterprise, HIE, SoSE, Scottish Education, Young Enterprise Scotland, Federation of Scottish Theatre.
Knowledge transfer workshops to be delivered by: Scottish Enterprise, HIE, SoSE Education Scotland, local authorities, Universities, FE colleges, Federation of Scottish Theatre.
Creative IP Development Examples: multimedia, books, courses, scripts, apps with sustainable income potential.
Aligned to: Creative Scotland, Screen Scotland, Publishing Scotland, Scottish Book Trust, Scottish Games Industry, Federation of Scottish Theatre.
Knowledge transfer workshops to be delivered by: CS Creative Industries, Screen Scotland, Publishing Scotland, Scottish Book Trust, Scottish Games Industry, Federation of Scottish Theatre, Universities.
Rural and Island Development Examples: arts related to the natural world; and to rural and island problems of depopulation, lack of housing, cultural loss, promoting Gaelic and Scots language and culture.
Aligned to: VisitScotland, Scottish Natural Heritage, local visitor centres, Community Trusts and social enterprises.
Knowledge transfer workshops to be delivered by: VisitScotland, Scottish Natural Heritage, UHI, Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, Bòrd na Gàidhlig, Scots Language Centre.

Costs
Creative Sustainable Livelihood Fund: One-off grants of £10k to be awarded to individual freelance creatives for a programme of work, products or service creation led, developed and delivered by the creative over a period of a year with a report of achievements at the end. Estimated cost: £15 million.
Other proposals have focused on much-needed emergency and hardship funds. These will still be needed. However, we propose that the Creative Sustainable Livelihood Fund is specifically targeted.
Creative Commissions Fund: grants to freelance and employed creative workers based on industry standard fair pay levels by agreement between companies and related trade unions. Estimated cost: £5 million.
Knowledge Transfer Workshops: Proposed cost: £0. Funded organisations would be expected to absorb this minimal cost.

Estimated total cost would be £20 million (18.7% of total funding available)
Points of comparison
£10k for business rate rebate recipients.
£2.5k/month cap for furloughed workers not working.
Freelance and self-employed screen industry creatives £1.5M.
CS Bridging Bursary £2M for individuals in the range £500-£2500.
Total extra funding relief available £107 million.

Conclusion
For a comparatively small investment, this initially one-off support would provide a testbed for new ways of working with the potential to transform the freelance and employed sector, by seeding more integrated working relationships and the strong embedding of creative work in communities, subject to Covid-19 health safeguards. Moreover, we believe that it can have a considerable impact on people’s lives throughout Scotland, both immediately and in the longer term. It therefore represents an excellent return on investment.
We recognise that implementation raises lots of questions. We are also conscious that it might encourage organisations to dismiss currently employed staff. We propose:
No redundancies as a result of these proposals.
Eligibility for the Creative Sustainable Livelihood Fund – individual self-employed freelance creatives.
Not eligible: Constituted organisations and companies eligible to apply for funding from funding bodies. These will be eligible for the Creative Commissions Fund.
The main aim is to benefit frontline freelance and employed creative industries workers and the communities around them.