Creative Workforce Pledge

Culture Commons has been leading a national campaign called the Creative Workforce Pledge to support the creative and cultural life of areas in England represented by a Metro Mayor. We have partnered with Excluded UK and the Federation of Entertainment Unions and kindly supported by the Arts Council England and the Paul Hamlyn Foundation.

So far, the campaign has seen saw over 12,000 people from across the UK using an in-house digital campaign tool to ask their Metro Mayoral candidates to sign up to the Pledge. Generating hundreds of thousands of impressions on social media, featuring on primetime media slots including BBC, Sky Arts, Sky News, and supported by a series of household names, the Creative Workforce Pledge campaign managed to get candidates from all major political parties signed up to 10 key principles.

Six elected Metro Mayors across England have now made the Creative Workforce Pledge. They are: Andy Burnham (Greater Manchester), Steve Rotherham (Liverpool), Tracy Brabin (West Yorkshire), Nik Johnson (Cambridgeshire & Peterborough), Dan Norris (West of England) and Oliver Coppard (South Yorkshire).

Culture Commons are now working with each of the Metro Mayor's and their teams to implement the Pledge commitments, including a Culture Forum in South Yorkshire. We are also in dialogue with Creative UK who are building on this work to develop a national 'Freelance Charter' with Combined Authorities across England - one of the 10 commitments in the Pledge.

You can find out more about the campaign at the campaign microsite here.