DACS and Smart Fund partners attend roundtable on 'Solutions to arts and culture funding across the UK’
Yesterday DACS – along with our Smart Fund partners The Authors' Licensing and Collecting Society (ALCS), the British Equity Collecting Society (BECS), Directors UK and PICSEL – attended a Labour roundtable organised by Gareth Snell MP (Stoke-on-Trent) and Lord Bassam convened to discuss the pressing challenges facing all creators.
The meeting addressed the widespread instability and significant drops in creators’ earnings, reductions in local government funding for arts and culture, and the impact of advancing digital technologies on creator remuneration. Attendees from both houses considered the introduction of a Smart Fund, which would ensure fair remuneration for artists, writers, performers, and directors.
The Smart Fund has the potential to raise over £300 million a year for rightsholders, with a portion of this ringfenced for cultural projects, with no cost to the Government, the taxpayer or consumers. In France, this portion equated to over 70 million Euros in 2022, supporting over 12,000 projects and grants across all regions of France. Similar successful schemes exist in 45 countries around the world.
Representatives from the Smart Fund group highlighted the impact of digital copying on creator remuneration and income instability, and that the introduction of a scheme in the UK would support the Government’s core objectives to grow the creative industries, reduce barriers to opportunity and enable access to culture across the UK, without drawing on public funds or placing burdens on consumers.
In attendance were:
Gareth Snell MP (Stoke-on-Trent)
Polly Billington MP (East Thanet)
Jonathan Davies MP (Mid Derbyshire)
Perran Moon MP (Camborne and Redruth)
Lord Bassam of Brighton
Baroness Keeley and
Lord Wood of Anfield
along with staff from the offices of Jo Platt MP (Leigh and Atherton) and Tony Vaughan MP (Folkestone and Hythe).
Read more
- What is the Smart Fund?
- How DACS advocates for artists
