News & Campaigns

In September the ISM published a new report into bullying and harassment called: Dignity at work 2: Discrimination in the music sector. The report follows on from our 2018 research, which uncovered evidence of endemic discrimination and harassment in the sector. Based on the findings from a survey of over 600 people, Dignity 2 reveals that the situation has not improved in the past four years, with 66% of respondents having experienced discrimination in some form.

The report’s lead author, Dr Kathryn Williams, discusses the findings of the report on page 8 of this issue.

The ISM team launched our new #Dignity2Work campaign at this year’s DittoX: Meet The Music Industry conference and networking event in London. The ISM launched the campaign as part of our panel event on Challenging discrimination in the music sector, which discussed the findings from our new report, Dignity at work 2. The session heard from the report’s co-authors, ISM President Vick Bain and Research and Policy Officer Dr Kathryn Williams, our Chief Executive Deborah Annetts, and Roger Wilson, Director of Operations at Black Lives in Music.

#Dignity2Work’s first action has been to coordinate an open letter from the ISM and those in the sector to the Minister for Women and Equalities, Kemi Badenoch. The letter calls for the government to introduce legislative changes which would make the music sector safer.

As a knock-on effect of Arts Council England’s (ACE) Let’s Create initiative, a ten-year strategy set up in 2020 for ACE to use their budget to increase cultural investment across the country, several prominent arts organisations including Welsh National Opera, Britten Sinfonia and lately the English National Opera (ENO) face severe funding cuts. ENO, given just 24-hours’ notice of ACE’s decision, has been stripped of its £12.5 million annual funding, and has instead been offered £17 million over the next three years on the condition that it agrees to relocate outside London. ACE’s new National Portfolio will see investments outside London of £43.5 million per year. While the intention of increasing inclusivity and diversity is commendable, their decision on how this is to be achieved is questionable. ENO has released statistics that show they are already achieving inclusivity: 50% of its audience are first-time opera goers, 1 in 7 are under 35 and over half of its audience came from outside London in the 2021-22 season. Read page 12 for more on ACE funding cuts to the ENO.

Above: ENO, HMS Pinafore 2021 Photo: Marc Brenner

We are concerned about some of the decisions which ACE have made and will be advocating hard for an increase in funding to support music. Visit ism.org/ news/ism-campaign-in-response-cuts-to-the-arts for more information.

No music teacher

Music has once again been excluded from teacher training bursaries for the academic year 2023-24, in a move which the ISM has called ‘an enormous disappointment’ .

Photo: The Department for Education (DfE) announced increased bursaries in some subjects to help the crisis in teacher recruitment. However, music still has no bursary despite the subject being forecast by the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) to recruit only 57% of the DfE’s target for teacher trainees in the 2022 academic year.

The bursary for music was cut in 2020, but apart from a brief increase in applications after the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of music teacher trainees has been falling steadily in recent years and many teachers have been leaving the profession. Recent analysis by the NFER shows a strong correlation between cuts in bursaries and a fall in teacher trainees. The ISM believes that the DfE should reinstate the music bursary to help encourage more music students into the teaching profession.

Responding to the DfE’s announcement, Deborah Annetts said, ‘Earlier this year the government published the refreshed National Plan for Music Education, which stated that children in every school should have access to at least one hour of music education per week up until Key Stage 3. To achieve that target we will need more trained music teachers. We urge the government to reconsider its decision.’

Read Deborah’s full speech in the news section of our website, ism ism.or org/n/newse

GCSE music entries fall to new low

This year’s GCSE results for students in England, Wales and Northern Ireland show that the uptake of music has fallen by 3.8% since 2021.

Figures from the Joint Council for Qualifications show the continued decline in arts subjects, with entries falling in art and design (2.1%), drama (6.4%) and design and technology (5.4%) compared to last year.

The data shows that between 2012 and 2022, entries for GCSE music have fallen 19% and a shocking 27% since 2010 and the introduction of the EBacc.

Photo: Ofqual

Deborah Annetts congratulated students receiving their results, but added, ‘This significant fall in music entries since 2021 gives great cause for concern, particularly when entries have now fallen by a staggering 27% since the EBacc was introduced. Accountability measures such as the EBacc and Progress 8 must be urgently reformed or scrapped to prevent further damage to our arts subjects.’

Priorities for music

Deborah Annetts gave a speech discussing priorities for music education in England at the Westminster Education Forum policy conference on 27 September.

She emphasised the danger of further cuts to arts education funding, saying, ‘We cannot take it for granted that with so much change happening the role of music in education will not be questioned and come under threat.’ She also highlighted supporting the education workforce as a priority, given the stark findings of the ISM’s recent reports, Music: A subject in peril? and The case for change, and the dramatic fall in music teacher trainee figures since the government scrapped the music teacher bursary in 2020.