Rethinking arts business models at the Arts Professional APPG for Freelancers panel
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Photo: © DACS
DACS was pleased to be at the Arts Professional Business of the Arts Summit yesterday, where the All‑Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Freelancers convened a panel exploring how arts organisations can better support and work with creative freelancers.
The session was part of Arts Professional’s 25‑year anniversary celebrations and brought together policymakers, trade bodies, unions and practitioners to explore the question: what if we re-think arts business models around creative freelancers?
The APPG for Freelancers, whose chair is Polly Billington MP, is provided with secretariat support from Bectu, DACS, The Authors’ Licensing & Collecting Society (ALCS), Directors UK and Freelancers Make Theatre Work.
Freelancers at the heart of the creative economy
Chaired by Rosie Carter (Bectu), the panel featured a range of voices reflecting the breadth of freelance work in the creative industries, including:
- Topher Campbell, artist and filmmaker
- Stephanie Street, writer and director
- Baroness Thangam Debbonaire, UK Opera Association
- Jennie Green, New Adventures
Together, they explored the fundamental role freelancers play in sustaining the UK’s cultural sector - and the growing pressures shaping freelance working lives, including falling real‑terms pay, insecure contracts, late payment, uneven access to rights and increasing anxiety around the impact of AI.
Designing fairer, more resilient business models
The panel comes at key moment in time for freelancers, as the need for structural change across arts and cultural organisations grows. The discussion examined what practical shifts would be required if freelancers were treated as long‑term partners in resilience rather than a flexible cost.
Panellists also reflected on the wider policy context, including ongoing debate around the delayed appointment of a Freelance Champion, and the importance of aligning political insight, trade union research and lived freelance experience to drive meaningful change across the sector.
Celebrating 25 years of Arts Professional
The Business of the Arts Summit marks a major milestone for Arts Professional, which has spent 25 years informing, questioning and connecting the UK’s arts and cultural sector. DACS congratulates Ruth Hogarth, Georgia Louise Luckhurst, Robin Cantrill‑Fenwick and the wider Arts Professional team on a landmark achievement - and thanks them for continuing to highlight important stories surrounding the creative industry.
