Earlier this week the UK government announced a £1.5bn package for cultural infrastructure in England. If your first reaction was “thank goodness”, you’re not alone. When roofs leak, boilers fail, and buildings become unsafe or inaccessible, work disappears. Keeping venues open matters.
But we also need to name the uncomfortable pattern we keep seeing, big announcements about buildings, with far less clarity (and urgency) about the people who actually make the art. Freelancers are still being treated as an afterthought, expected to wait for “trickle down” benefits that may never arrive.
What was announced
The headline is capital investment, money for repairs, refurbishments, upgrades and making spaces fit for the future, delivered across the period 2025 to 2030.
The package includes:
- £425m Creative Foundations Fund, supporting around 300 capital projects in arts venues
- £760m for museums, including £600m for national museums and DCMS-sponsored cultural organisations, plus £160m for local and regional museums
- £230m for heritage, including funding streams for at-risk heritage, community heritage buildings, and places of worship
- £27.5m Libraries Improvement Fund, to upgrade library buildings and technology
- £80m in capital funding over four years for Arts Council England National Portfolio Organisations, alongside a 5% uplift for NPO funding in 2026/27
That final point matters, because it acknowledges the financial squeeze organisations are under, and it gestures towards stability, not just patching holes.
Why this matters (and why we’re not dismissing it)
When venues cannot afford essential repairs, they cut activity, reduce runs, cancel projects, or close spaces. Capital investment can protect the conditions that make paid work possible, from safe stage doors to usable rehearsal rooms.
It can also help venues reduce long-term costs through upgrades, and that can increase resilience. Theatres Trust has also noted how oversubscribed capital funding rounds have been in the past, which shows just how big the need is.
So yes, this is welcome.
But freelancers do not get paid in scaffolding
Here’s the problem. Capital funding does not automatically improve freelance pay, conditions, or job security.
We are already seeing the same concern reflected publicly, that investment focused on buildings can miss the workforce crisis in pay and retention. And as the Musicians’ Union put it, organisations are often forced into impossible choices between fixing the building and paying performers properly.
Freelancers know this story too well:
Government papers about the future of the creative industries constantly talk about the need for a workforce that is fit for that future. But where is the investment in that workforce. It is dangerously easy for people to say, “Look, we’ve invested in the arts,” when what has really been funded is infrastructure, not artists, arts workers, or the art itself.
- A venue gets a capital grant, but the next freelance contract still offers the same fee as 5 or 10 years ago
- Budgets get tighter during building works, and freelance teams carry more risk, more unpaid time, more short-notice changes
- “Investment” gets celebrated, but late payment, low rates, and unpaid prep remain normalised
If this funding is going to support culture in every local authority, then it needs to support the workers in every local authority too.
What would it mean if freelancers were not an afterthought?
This is the moment to be practical and specific. If public money is going into venues, we want to see clear expectations that it strengthens the freelance workforce as well as the building.
Here are a few examples of what “freelancers included” could look like:
- Fair pay and fee transparency
Capital funding recipients should publish fee ranges for freelance roles connected to funded work, and show how rates are being improved year on year. - Prompt payment as a condition
If a venue takes public money, freelancers should not be waiting 30, 60, 90 days to be paid. A clear maximum payment term, and reporting on whether it is met. - Ringfenced spend for creative work alongside capital works
If a venue is being “futureproofed”, that should include commissioning, programming, and paid R and D that creates actual freelance opportunities, not just a nicer foyer. - Freelancer voice in project planning
Building projects affect how freelancers work day-to-day, from access to facilities to schedules and safety. Freelancers should be consulted, not simply informed. - Proof of impact on the workforce
Not vague claims. Simple reporting that shows what changed for freelance workers: number of paid days created, average fees, payment timelines, retention.
Culture Commons has already flagged that there are still unknowns on routes, targeting, and timelines across parts of the package. That uncertainty is exactly why we need the freelancer conversation now, not after the money is allocated.
Our view at FMTW
We will always support investment that keeps venues open and communities connected to arts and culture. We want buildings to be safe, sustainable, accessible, and fit for brilliant work.
But we are not prepared to accept another cycle where freelancers are expected to quietly wait for the benefits to “reach” us.
If the government wants this to be a “reset”, then the reset has to include the freelance workforce. Not as a footnote, and not as a future phase, but as part of the plan.