Securing a fair deal for museum interns - Museums Association

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Securing a fair deal for museum interns

Unpaid work is still under the spotlight but some in the sector are trying to address the issue. Geraldine Kendall reports
It’s a tough time for anyone starting a career in museums and galleries. The pool of available jobs – which has always been dwarfed by the number of people looking to start out in the sector – is shrinking, leaving experienced, over-qualified candidates battling it out for even the most basic roles.

In this competitive environment, tales of exploitative working practices are rife: barely a month goes by that some cultural organisation is not hauled over the coals for advertising a highly skilled (and often previously paid) role as voluntary, or running unpaid “internships” for menial work that offers no discernible element of development or training.

These are obviously damaging practices, not only for people whose eagerness to work in the sector means that they are easily taken advantage of, but also for those who are being excluded from a museum career entirely because they cannot afford the upfront costs (estimated at more then £900 a month in London) of working for free.

Unpaid work in museums will certainly come under the spotlight this year as the Museums Association (MA) reviews its code of ethics for museums, which could see the code taking a stronger stance on workforce issues. The MA’s recent consultation showed that, unsurprisingly, this is an ethical priority for many museum professionals.

On a wider scale, young voters are determined to make unpaid labour a big issue ahead of the general election; organisations such as Intern Aware have been campaigning for several years against unremunerated placements and have outed several museums, including the Serpentine Gallery in London, for bad practice. Labour recently announced plans to curb full-time, unpaid placements that last longer than four weeks.

There is no doubt that funding cuts are exacerbating the problem. The MA’s most recent cuts survey showed that a third of museums increased the number of volunteers they recruited in 2013-14; at the same time, more than half cut paid staff. Volunteers have always been a valuable resource for the sector and it should go without saying that not every unpaid role is exploitative, but this trend is a concern.

Aside from the detrimental impact on the diversity of the workforce, this greater reliance on volunteering may drain professional skills from the sector. It could also inflate employers’ expectations as to the level of skill and experience that paid employees in entry-level roles should have.
 
There are legal and financial implications for museums too. HMRC has strict regulations to distinguish between voluntary roles and work that should warrant a minimum wage; companies can be sued for back pay for breaching those rules, as well as facing government fines of up to £20,000.

It is more of a grey area in the charitable sector, where organisations are given greater legal protection and flexibility to recruit voluntary workers. This is a vital exemption, but there is evidence that it is being abused. “We’ve seen charities using that loophole to get around paying people for work that is essential to the function of the organisation,” says Chris Hares, Intern Aware’s campaign manager.

Voluntary roles

Making a distinction between genuine volunteering and placements that veer into employee status can be problematic – and many charities could be putting themselves at risk without realising it. As a rough guide, voluntary roles should not stipulate essential skills or qualifications, and cannot dictate time commitments or other contractual obligations (even verbal agreements can be taken as a contract).

“You are at risk even if you are a charity,” says Sara Whybrew, the director of Creative and Cultural Skills’ (CCSkills) Creative Employment Programme. “I see people shuffling in their seats when I raise this, but more often than not, they are breaching the regulations. If everyone that did it was reported, there would be an issue.”

Other forms of unpaid work, such as traineeships or internships, have a different set of responsibilities. The MA’s internship guidelines for museums, which are based on guidance from the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO), advise that expenses should be paid, that trainees should be given a structured work plan with clear development opportunities, and that placements should be short-term or part-time to give the intern an opportunity to hold down a paid job at the same time.

But CCSkills and other organisations are trying to encourage a move away
from unpaid placements altogether. Whybrew points out that there are many entry-level roles in museums that could be opened up through paid, on-the-job training to people who have not gone down the academic route.

This would broaden the recruitment pool of those considering a museum career, she says, as well as freeing graduates up to compete for more skilled jobs, rather having to undertake additional internships after their degree, or being “underemployed” in basic roles where their knowledge and training is squandered.

There are encouraging signs that both policy-makers and individual organisations are waking up to the dangers posed by an over-reliance on unpaid work. In spite of the difficult financial climate, several innovative schemes have been launched in the past few years with the aim of broadening entry routes and changing the recruitment culture – and the results of those initiatives are now coming to fruition.

Skills for the Future

The Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) has pioneered good practice with its Skills for the Future programme, which has funded 93 internship or traineeship schemes across the UK since 2009, providing more than 2,100 paid entry-level training placements. The initiative, which was always intended to be time-limited, has now closed to new projects, but it will continue to fund existing programmes until 2018.

Participating organisations include Museums Galleries Scotland, which has just launched a new round of 20 paid traineeships at museums in Scotland, all aimed at giving non-graduates a vocational qualification in museum practice.

Other Skills for the Future schemes specifically target under-represented groups, such as the Strengthening Our Common Life training programme run by Cultural Co-Operation, which has so far enabled 26 young people of black, Asian and minority ethnic origin to undertake paid traineeships.

There are concerns about what will happen to those paid training opportunities when the funding from Skills for the Future dries up. To build on the programme’s legacy, HLF has embedded skills development in its general grant-making criteria and encourages organisations to include paid training placements in project bids.

Other organisations have committed themselves to building on this good practice. The Institute of Conservation (Icon) is to continue its Skills for the Future interns programme without ongoing HLF funding. It will carry on providing recruitment services and practical support, but will encourage host organisations to raise funding for placements externally through grants and sponsorship.

Encouraging diversity

Arts Council England (ACE), which recently announced a renewed focus on diversity, has also funded exemplary models for recruiting new entrants to the museum sector, including the Training Museum apprenticeship scheme at Norfolk Museums Service, which targets young people who do not have previous experience of working in museums.

ACE also funds the aforementioned Creative Employment Programme, which was recently extended and will offer funding for paid internships (for unemployed people, including graduates) and apprenticeships (for non-graduates) in the cultural sector until later this year.

But however effective these initiatives are, it will take longer for a culture change to take place across the sector as a whole. According to Whybrew, take-up of the Creative Employment Programme has been surprisingly low among museums in comparison with other creative sectors.

She believes that some museums have been slow to move away from the traditional expectation that new entrants should have higher-level qualifications, while others may be hesitant to make a commitment while their own financial outlook is so uncertain.  Some museum professionals believe sector bodies should do more to champion the apprenticeship model at policy level.

With the sector in a state of flux, it is vital for museums and galleries to be conscientious in their working practices and make sure that they represent the communities they serve, says Charlotte Holmes, the museum development officer at the MA.

“Museums must be very transparent about the opportunities they are offering. If it is a job, then it should be advertised as such.”

Getting the skills

"We believe true economic growth in the creative and cultural sector can only really happen with access to the right talent and skills.

However, in order to access this talent we need to think differently about who we recruit and how we recruit.  We feel it is important to tackle the endemic culture of unpaid work in our sector, so those who aren’t able to work for free don’t have to, and so employers aren’t putting themselves at risk of incurring the financial penalties that apply to those who contravene national minimum wage legislation.

We also want employers to think about whether graduates are always needed to fill their jobs and whether an apprenticeship route is a viable alternative – this may help avoid underemployment for those who have spent years training in a specific field, while helping to level the playing field for those who don’t feel higher education is for them.

If you’d like to learn more about the support on offer to employers looking to create new apprenticeship and paid internship opportunities, please get in touch with the Creative Employment Programme at cep@ccskills.org.uk."

Sara Whybrew, the director of the Creative Employment Programme. The initiative, which has a monthly deadline, will come to an end in November this year



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