Artsmonkey Blog

Funny old world, the Arts. We crave to be taken seriously, strive for excellence (in an accessible and all embracing way, whilst often also seeking to rebel and revoke). Recently sat thru a meeting where a new job post was discussed. The suggested pro rata fee was 25k per annum (minimum Arts Council Officer level) Horrified to hear senior managers from the youth arts sector suggesting that they couldn’t possibly pay someone that level of pay (for a job which demands a high level of experience, range of management skills and ability to be one third super-human) as they had other senior posts which commanded lower levels of pay and therefore would put the balance of ’status’ out of kilter and they would rather split the salary between say, two lower paid posts, most likely part-time.

For those of you who are not familiar with the Youth Arts sector of the Arts, funding is often offered on a project by project basis usually lasting anything from 6 months to three years. Thus, core staff teams are often small (1 - 5 people) and most staff employed by an organisation are employed per project and the level of pay for staff set by the amount of funding attracted (raised) to each individual project. Arts organisations often have more than one project ongoing in order to keep funds incoming. In effect, a very experienced staff member could be working in the same organisation as a less experienced staff member who is on a higher rate of pay because that particular project attracted a larger funding stream. So what’s the problem?

The problem is, that we will never be taken seriously whilst we continue to work at extremely low rates of pay without striving to raise the bar and when the opportunity arrives for an externally funded staff post to be offered at a fairly decent salary level - we sneer at it and balk at the chance to start making change.  We have to start somewhere. It is widely recognised in the arts that ‘a high level of pay’ often, in no way reflects ability, experience or success rate but audacity, arrogance and ego (sometimes it does) - so it surely is time to start setting a few bench marks from the bottom up, isn’t it?

No wonder consultants and colleagues in business shake their heads in disbelief when they try to get their heads around the workings of Arts organisations.

Maybe this doesn’t reflect your experience, or you have another take on this? DISCUSS