Help Musicians urge Chancellor Rishi Sunak to provide more support for self-employed artists

Last month, Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced a self-employment support scheme where they claimed they would support self-employed workers by paying up to 80% of their monthly wage.

The scheme has its gaps - those that haven't filed a tax return yet or have only been self-employed for the past year could miss out on financial relief due to the lack of data they have on their earnings.

Help Musicians, "an independent UK charity for professional musicians of all genres, from starting out through to retirement" have shared an open letter addressed to the Chancellor, in which they urge him to offer more support for musicians in need.

They write, "On Wednesday 25 March Help Musicians launched a hardship scheme for musicians offering a oneoff £500 payment to those suffering significant financial hardship. In the two weeks since launch we have received over 17,000 applications for help. This is unprecedented. We have put in £5m of our own reserves to fund this and, thanks to significant donations from a number of major organisations within the world of music, hope to have processed and paid all eligible applications within the next fortnight. Other organisations, such as the Musicians’ Union and PRS, have also opened large hardship schemes."

Help Musicians point out that they've seen a rapid rise in demand for their services, and despite the help they are trying to provide for musicians, "the Incorporated Society of Musicians reported yesterday [8 April] that over 80% of the music sector had been badly hit by Covid 19 and that a third of music businesses are already at risk of failing imminently. The scale of the crisis means many are not currently getting the help they need."

Discussing some of the gaps in the scheme, Help Musicians write, "Many of our friends, including UK Music, the Musicians’ Union and the Incorporated Society of Musicians, have written to you to explain the gaps in this scheme through which musicians can fall; in particular those who have been self-employed for less than a year (or have not yet made a profit), who are part self-employed (at less than 50% of their total annual income) or who earn just above the £50,000 cap."

The charity thanks Sunak for the launch of the self-employment scheme, but also highlights some issues via a survey the charity carried out, "We ran a survey for all musicians a few days ago which had over 2,000 respondents in three days. 87% identified as self-employed and of those 25% said they would not be eligible for self-employed support (for the reasons listed above). This is highly significant. It represents tens of thousands of musicians and is probably indicative of a wider problem across the self-employed within the entire creative industries and beyond. In addition, only 5% of those responding said they felt the government's current guidance about the Self-employment Income Support Scheme is clear. "

Before signing off, Help Musicians reveal their "survey evidence today proves that the good is not yet good enough. Therefore we urge you, in the strongest possible terms, to reconsider the rules and thresholds within your proposals in order to bring all self-employed musicians into the scheme, which they so desperately need."