Dr Nick Winterbotham

Chair, GEM – the voice for heritage learning

M 07775774539

T 01283 840533

www.nickwinterbotham.com

-----Original Message-----
From: Trudie Cole <[log in to unmask]>
To: GEM <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wed, 7 Nov 2012 16:37
Subject: Re: Freelance fees

I know it’s a bit late in the day to respond to this, but having just seen this thread I feel the need to contribute.

A previous poster mentioned the calculations for a freelancers daily rate being based on the average wage of about £26500 and I think I ought to point out that many salaried learning posts are well below this (somewhere around £21-£23k seems to be about average). I am not suggesting freelancers ought to ask for less, but I do think that salaried posts also ought to be reflective of the skills and experience involved.

The conclusion I draw from all this is that learning staff are undervalued and I wonder what as a sector we can do to address this (particularly in these troubled times)!

Trudie Cole
Learning and Access Manager
Culture and Community Learning, Borough of Poole

Poole Museum Service
+ 4 High Street, Poole BH15 1BW
( 01202 262 623
: www.boroughofpoole.com/museumlearning
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From: List for discussion of issues in museum education in the UK. [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Nigel Sadler
Sent: 29 October 2012 14:41
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Freelance fees

I have been following this discussion with interest. I think most people would understand that freelancers need to be paid a wage that they can live on. However, most museums fail to realise that freelancers need to pay for:

Their own tax (if they are lucky enough to earn enough to have to pay tax)

National Insurance

Pension or saving scheme (we don't want to work beyond 66 like many in full time employment, and we do not benefit from an employer paying a contribution for us)

Office space - many of us work from home and need dedicated space and equipment. I need a good computer, printer, digital camera and a good internet access for research. These are tax deductable but I still need to have the cash to buy them

Expenses (travel etc)

I also need free time (none earning time) to seek out contracts which are becoming harder and more elusive. I would also expect to commit time to preparing bids for contracts, which may take a lot of time to prepare but pay nothing. In a good year I would expect to be able to work for about 160 days. However, these are not good years at present as museum budgets are cut.

I also think that a major point has been missed. In the present economic climate many museums have either laid off staff or not recruited. This means that there are now many fully trained museum professionals who are unable to find work. What this has meant is that there are now a lot more freelancers in the market. I think there are probably three types of freelancers:

1) those looking for full time employment but willing to take short term freelance work to bring in some income

2) those who are happy in doing a few small contracts a year to keep their hand in, but not at this time interested in full time work (but may consider full time work at a later date)

3) those who have deliberately chosen to be freelancers and see this as their 'full time job'

I think the MA need to do a study on the present freelance museum sector and come up with guidelines for museums when commissioning and hiring freelancers. What I am worried about is that there are people who are willing to do a days work for £100 or less which devalues the real work that freelancers undertake and makes it harder for full time freelancers to charge a living wage (without appearing to be greedy!).

Nigel Sadler

Sands of Time Consultancy
http://www.sandsoftimeconsultancy.com

From: Richard Ellam <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Monday, 29 October 2012, 14:24
Subject: Re: Freelance fees

Noting what has been said about polarisation in this discussion I nevertheless think that Jenny' calculation that a appropriate daily rate for an experienced education professional is somewhere under £200 misses a very important point.

This is that the money included in my calculation of freelance rates to cover necessary time spent by a freelance doing 'non earning' things like admin. tax and marketing should be covered in the daily rate when a freelance is working because that is the Opportunity Cost of having that freelancer avaliable at all to do the work.

To claim that its difficult to make a case for paying freelancers enough money to have them avaliable at all is, whatever the economic circumstances, simply silly. ALL businesses, even Museums, have to pay overhead costs such as admin, marketing and whatnot simply to survive. Whenever you buy anything, whether its a paperclip or a car, you pay for these hidden costs in the price that you pay. Museum freelancers are no different to any other business in needing to cover their total costs from their income, and so they are quire entitled to roll up their hidden costs into the day rate they charge.

And if you think that's too much, go and ask your HR or payroll dept what the real cost of employing you per day is - but make sure you're sitting down when you have the conversation as the number they come back with may be a bit of a shock.

Hope this helps

Regards

Richard.

Richard Ellam

L M Interactive

Science Shows and Hands-On Stuff

[log in to unmask]

On 25 Oct 2012, at 23:08, jenni jibbs wrote:

I am sympathetic to what freelance people are saying and agree with Nicola it is a sliding scale - it comes back to the age old discussion of what you are asking someone to deliver and Nicola's definition/distinction below is very helpful.

However, it is not just the museums that are to blame, I have had experience of putting funding bids together to the HLF, ACE and others that pay the suggested £250-£300 but they then say the project is too expensive and the professional fees too high, they contradict their own guidance. They wont let you reduce the outputs but they do want you to drive down the costs.

One way round this is to cover the travel expenses, materials, refreshments and insurance for the freelancer separately - at least this helps someway to make up the shortfall for the freelancer and can be counted as a project cost rather than professional fees.

Sadly, though sympathetic not many museums can afford the £250-£300, it is a competitive market, whether a member of staff or a freelancer, someone somewhere will do the work - often for free so this devalues our pay across the sector. Most museum education officers I know work a minimum of an extra day a week 'for free' as we all want to do the best for the audiences and museums we serve on increasingly diminishing resources. It is often more realistic for museums to pay £150-£200, not through choice but because of the conditions within our sector. If you were to earn £26.5K a year (often the level of pay for an experienced education officer or a teacher) at 230 days that works out at £115, if we pay an extra £40-£75 on top of this then we are trying to help cover some of your additional costs. It is difficult to make the case to funders that we need to pay for your marketing expenses, tax arrangements, attendance at conferences, days not working etc, they are only interested in the days you are working. You rightly argue that you need to cover all your costs, but perhaps at a time of budget constraints, this is the wrong sector to be able to support you in achieving this?

I often feel these conversations pitch freelancer v heritage organisation, and it is not helpful. We are sympathetic but we don't set the budgets and often neither do our superiors. You need to get the likes of GEM. MA. ACE and HLF to make the case to government and give the museums the right level of funding to be able to fund the £250-£300 that reflects the true cost of freelance work. You will find many supporters in the ranks, many of us have often tried to make this case on your behalf but failed.

My final point is - if you don't like the fees on offer don't apply. This goes for us all, but again sadly most of us are not independently wealthy and take the jobs anyway.

On Thu, Oct 25, 2012 at 2:06 PM, Nicola Bell <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

Richard has given a good description of many of the things to take into account. Also, the organisation (and the freelancer) needs to be sure whether the tasks they are doing are that of an employee or a self-employed contractor. If the person is just delivering sessions which have already been prepared by the organisation, they might be more likely to be an employee, perhaps employed on a casual basis. If the person is doing consultations, designing and delivering sessions, and has control over when and how they work, they might be self-employed. See this link:http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/working/intro/empstatus.htm - HMRC takes a firm view about whether someone is employed or self-employed, and organisations can end up in trouble if someone is working for them on a self-employed basis when HMRC sees them as an employee.

Best to decide what you want the education person to do, and then agree which category the post will fall into.

Best wishes

Nicola

Nicola Bell
culture~evaluation~learning
[log in to unmask]
http://www.nicolabell.co.uk/

----- Original Message -----

From: [log in to unmask]">Richard Ellam

To: [log in to unmask]">[log in to unmask]

Sent: Thursday, October 25, 2012 11:27 AM

Subject: Re: Freelance fees

I know it says to reply to Helen Giles, but I thought my response might be of interest to the wider GEM List, particularly anyone thinking of going freelance, or of employing freelances, so here it is:

Dear Helen

You asked via the GEM List about freelance fees, for a possible freelance education officer, and asked if a fee of £83 per day was reasonable.

Sorry, but its not. For someone to undertake the range of work you're thinking of a fee of £250 - £300 per day will be nearer the mark.

Why? Let's work out some figures from the freelancer's point of view.

Suppose a freelance wants to make about the national average salary, about £26,500 a year - not exactly untold riches.

They can work 46 weeks a year, five days a week, that's 230 days a year. But they cannot expect that on every one of these 230 days they will be doing work they are paid for. They need time to run the business, market themselves, and do all the other things that your employer does for you, but a freelance must do for themselves. This unpaid but vital work is likley to take up about two days a week, leaving 138 days a year when the freelance can reasonably expect to be doing paid work for clients.

£26,500 divided by 138 days works out at just over £192 a day.

But, the freelance has to meet other costs as well as her 'salary': she's got to keep a car on the road, pay for publicity, buy a computer, possibly have her accounts done, make up for the pension contributions that your employer pays (on top of the ones you pay yourself), buy stationery, provide insurance and possibly provide some general equipment for her job, so if you add up the cost of all these bits and pieces you soon get to another £40 -£50 a day, and we're back in to the £250 -£300 per day range.

For costing purposes I'd use the top end of this range, as this gives some wiggle room in the budget if you need it.

If you're looking at a long-term project you might find its cheaper to consider employing an education officer on a fixed term contract funded by the grant. Your HR or payroll dept should be able to provide costings for the total cost of employing someone (salary+employer's NI+employers pension contributions+allowance for other costs, such as desk, computer etc..)

It might also be worth taking advice from the HLF to find out if they would be more likley to fund a fixed term employee education officer, or provide money for hiring a long-term freelance.

Hope this helps

Good luck

Richard.

Richard Ellam

L M Interactive

Science Shows and Hands-On Stuff

[log in to unmask]

On 24 Oct 2012, at 11:06, GEM Office wrote:

Forwarded on behalf of Helen Giles

Please DO NOT reply to GEM!

***************************

My name is Helen Giles and I am the Heritage and Museums Officer for the Borough of Hertsmere in Hertfordshire. I am currently in the process of helping an independent, volunteer-run museum to put in a ‘Your Heritage’ application to the Heritage Lottery fund for a grant towards the relocation of the museum into a new community facility. The grant will go towards the fitout of the new museum but we are also very keen to add to the bid the cost of a freelance education person to work with the local community and schools to provide learning opportunities for example resource boxes, events, activities, school sessions.

I have had a quick look at some vacancies online for freelance education work but its difficult to interpret what fees freelancers would charge for such work. I am trying to find out what is acceptable in terms of day rate for someone who has a museum education background and who could deliver a range of learning activities/projects for the new museum. One I found was 12,500 for two years work but this worked out at £83 per day…is this a typical figure to ask or should I be looking higher?

I realise that this is all subjective, but any ‘ball park’ figures or a ‘fee range’ you could give me would really help me to put together a realistic amount for this project.

Many thanks for your time.

Helen Giles AMA
Heritage and Museums Officer (Weds, Thurs and Fri)

Hertsmere Borough Council

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