Unpaid internships and volunteering: UK Government call for evidence
Context
The UK Government has issued a call for evidence stemming from UK Government’s Make Work Pay commitment to ban unpaid internships where they are not part of a formal training or educational course. Existing legislation largely prohibits this so they are keen to understand why individuals are being engaged in unpaid internships when they are workers and should be paid at least the National Minimum Wage.
Culture Counts’ response is as follows:
Culture Counts is Scotland’s network of arts, heritage and creative industries organisations, advocating for the development and protection of culture as fundamental to our common future. Our members include Scotland’s major representative bodies and networks, unions, National Performing Companies, Non-Departmental Public Bodies, Local Authority ALEOs, and some companies and events.
This submission has been prepared in response to the UK Government's call for evidence stemming from UK Government’s Make Work Pay commitment to ban unpaid internships where they are not part of a formal training or educational course.
Unpaid Internships and those paid below the National Minimum Wage
Culture Counts strongly supports the proposition that internships which are not part of an educational or training course should be paid at least the National Minimum Wage. In addition to a Fair Wage, our view is that interns should be compensated for reasonable workplace expenses (as should all workers), including the costs of work-related travel and accommodation, any necessary uniforms, materials or safety equipment, and the costs of training and development opportunities. Whilst the nature (and therefore the length) of internships will naturally vary from context to context, we follow the findings of 93% Club in recognising that “internships being unpaid remains one of the biggest obstacles for people being able to access these opportunities and gain experience in their chosen fields... unpaid internships shut out those who canʼt afford to work for free, giving a head start to those who can”.
The 93% Club’s Big State School survey recognises that some parts of the culture sector are particularly recognised as being aspirational, where the freedom to pursue one’s passions in choosing a career is one disproportionately available to privileged students, “while others are forced to choose practicality over passion”. 59% of state-school educated arts and entertainment-sector respondents to the 93% Club’s survey reported that they had to manage, work alongside, or look after an intern or work experience candidate that was a child of a client or executive at their company – second only to law in the frequency of this experience of “nepo-babysitting”. “When asked how this made them feel, 40% said frustrated, 35% uncomfortable, and nearly a third (31%) said it left them disillusioned”.
Culture Counts champions a creative and cultural sector that is open to, and representative of all parts of society, and recognises the ending of unpaid internships as an important step in reducing the financial and class-based barriers to building a career in the sector.
Questions on voluntary workers
Volunteers are an important and valued part of the cultural sector, and often play invaluable roles, notably in heritage settings, in museums and galleries, and in community-led creative projects. In common with the wider third sector, volunteers also serve in important leadership positions on Boards of Trustees of creative organisations, which are legally required to be unpaid. Culture Counts believes that:
there is an important and valuable role for volunteers within the cultural sector,
that all volunteers should be supported in their roles, and
that volunteering should not be used to replace paid work opportunities.
Volunteers play an important and valuable role within the culture sector. For example, research by Museums Galleries Scotland found that 94% of Scotland’s museums and galleries involve volunteers, with a total of more than 3,400 volunteers identified by survey respondents. Creative Lives supports the many thousands of community and volunteer-led creative groups across the UK. Our view is that all volunteers should be supported in their roles, and that there should not be financial barriers to volunteering. Volunteers should be compensated for reasonable workplace expenses (as should all workers), including the costs of work-related travel and accommodation, any necessary uniforms, materials or safety equipment, and the costs of training and development opportunities. We align with Volunteer Scotland’s Volunteer Charter in advocating that “out of pocket expenses should be covered, no one should be prevented from volunteering due to their income, [and] effective structures should be put in place to support, train and develop volunteers”. We recognise that in some tiny and community-led projects, which run without paid staff and on a largely unfunded basis, this may simply not be feasible, and there is an important case to be made for proportionality in terms of the size of organisation and the level of financial support they can offer to volunteers.
Volunteers also play a vital leadership role in the cultural sector in serving on Boards of Trustees. These are important roles with significant levels of authority and responsibility, often requiring significant investments of time and energy. Culture Counts recognises the significant contribution made by these volunteers, who should be supported in their roles as set out above (including support and training to enable more people to thrive in these roles, such as that offered by Culture and Business Scotland). We also recognise that the unpaid and time-consuming nature of these commitments means that they are overwhelmingly held by people already in positions of significant responsibility (who are often effectively paid for their Trustee responsibilities via time made available within their other salaried roles), or those retired from such roles and therefore able to commit the required time on a voluntary basis. Whilst the sector doubtless benefits from the experience and expertise of these individuals, this set-up perpetuates unequal distributions of power within the sector. Boards are frequently not representative of those they serve, with younger people, women, those from the global majority, disabled and working-class people frequently under-represented on Boards.
Marginalised people are more likely to have greater time and economic pressures that make it more difficult for them to volunteer, and the resulting lack of diversity in many voluntary organisations can lead to a lack of awareness of varying needs, abilities, cultures, lived experiences and backgrounds. The contemporary cost of living crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic have disproportionately affected marginalised people, further entrenching inequalities and increasing barriers to volunteering (https://makeyourmark.scot/media/ve0buqgp/mym-inclusive-volunteering-report-02-24-digital.pdf)
It is of great concern... that 71% of our national creative and cultural bodies have no women of colour on their boards, and of the 26 data sets across all the sectors half of them include no people of colour at all. We urgently need Scotland’s media and cultural institutions to proactively seek input into decision-making by people of colour (https://emcc.engender.org.uk/publications/mediandiversity.pdf)
Whilst the principles of Trustee positions (as independent, altruistic acts of service) are important, the reality is that being unable to pay Board members acts as a financial barrier, enabling some people to take on positions of significant power within the sector at the expense of those not able to volunteer their time. Culture Counts would advocate for further consideration to be given as how to balance the (often competing, in our view) goals of altruistic independence and effective representation on Boards, and for opportunities to pay financial stipends or for under-represented groups to serve on Boards of Trustees, or otherwise address the financial barriers to these positions.
Volunteer Scotland’s Volunteer Charter states that “Volunteers should not be used instead of paid workers or undercut their pay and conditions of service nor undertake the work of paid workers during industrial disputes... Volunteers should not carry out duties formerly carried out by paid workers, nor should they be used to disguise the effects of non-filled vacancies or cuts in services”.
In the cultural sector, criticism has long been made of large, commercial and highly profitable organisations who offer ‘volunteer’ opportunities that do not align with the expectations that volunteers offer their time free of charge, with no sanctions for not performing duties and with freedom to choose the tasks they undertake. In February 2025, the Guardian reported that:
“Arts employers could be breaking the law by relying on unpaid interns to perform roles that should be left to paid workers, preventing young people from working-class backgrounds from gaining a foothold”.
Culture Counts supports measures that seek to recognise and support the legitimate and much-valued roles of volunteers in the cultural sector, whilst seeking to deter the exploitation associated with volunteer opportunities in commercial or large-scale activities replacing what should be paid roles.