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Michele Lomas at piano, trombone in background
Music teacher Michele Lomas is going freelance after losing her job with Wiltshire Music Service. Photograph: Adrian Sherratt/The Guardian
Music teacher Michele Lomas is going freelance after losing her job with Wiltshire Music Service. Photograph: Adrian Sherratt/The Guardian

Brassed off: the music teachers on zero-hours contracts

This article is more than 8 years old
Redundancies and cuts in funding may leave some children with no opportunity to learn a musical instrument

This week Michele Lomas will give her last lesson for Wiltshire Music Service. After six years teaching brass instruments to children in the area, she is being made redundant. She plans to continue on a freelance basis, but will no longer belong to a pension scheme, nor be eligible for sickness and maternity pay. She will have to fund her own travel, public liability insurance and training. “It’s not so much about the income, as I know I will be able to get teaching work – it’s losing my pension and sick pay I’m most worried about,” she says. “Conditions for teachers have been getting worse for some time, but this is the final nail in the coffin.”

It has been a turbulent few years for music education. After the 2011 Henley review, which recommended the creation of “hubs” (partnerships made up of schools, arts organisations, charities and other education providers), music services had to bid for the right to run them. While most won their bids, a reduction in government funding for music (from £82.5m in 2010-11 to £60m for 2014-15), along with cuts to local authority budgets, has meant they have had to provide more for less. For many councils this has led to restructuring and redundancies. Some, such as Milton Keynes and Cornwall, have closed their services down.

The situation is particularly bad in Wales, where there is no central government funding for music services. Many have no funding at all or have ceased to exist altogether.

In the past, many teachers employed by music services had the same, or equivalent, pay and conditions as classroom teachers, which meant the teaching unions would fight their corner. But with many music services cutting full-time posts and hiring freelance (and often unqualified) instrumental teachers instead, there is little support available. “Of course we do what we can to help, but in a workforce largely made up of unqualified teachers who are not employed by anyone, industrial action isn’t an option,” says John Dixon, assistant general secretary of the NUT.

The Musicians’ Union says that at a conservative estimate between a quarter and a third of the workforce have lost their jobs in the past three years.

Most music services have re-employed teachers as freelances, but this is generally on zero-hours or “spurious self-employed” contracts, says Diane Widdison, national organiser at the Musicians’ Union. “Without the security of a full-time job, some are struggling to get mortgages, or even rental agreements.”

Although freelancing can be attractive to teachers in large towns and cities, where there are plenty of opportunities to build a portfolio career of teaching and performing, it’s much more difficult to make a living this way in rural or remote areas. “I recently spoke to a couple who both work full-time for a music service and are both at risk of redundancy,” says Widdison. “It’s their livelihood.”

Widdison is not just concerned about the impact on teachers. The National Plan for Music, launched after the Henley review, set out the government’s ambition for every child to be able to learn an instrument. The then education secretary, Michael Gove, spoke of the need to “prioritise the use of public funding” to give children this chance.

The national network of 123 music hubs, which receive central government funding, via Arts Council England, have taken the lead on this, providing free or subsidised tuition to local schools.

But five years on, there is less money to go around – and fewer teachers – which means provision is patchy. “In some schools, children get a year [of free instrumental teaching]. Some get just six weeks,” says Widdison. If more music services close, she fears the opportunity for all children to learn an instrument may disappear from some schools altogether – along with instrument loan schemes and opportunities to play and perform in ensembles (other key aspects of the National Plan).

Children in rural or remote areas – particularly those in small schools – are most at risk of losing out, says Lomas. “Freelance teachers are not going to want to spend hours driving between schools to deliver lessons if their travel is not being paid.”

Where children do get a chance to learn an instrument free at school, smaller budgets mean groups are bigger – often 30 children or more. One teacher, who asked not to be identified, said that since being made redundant, he’s gone from teaching about 50 children a week, one-to-one and in small groups, to 500, all in whole classes. And he is not convinced he is making an impact.

“Teaching a class of 30 kids to play an instrument – some of whom might have emotional, behavioural or learning difficulties – is not easy,” he says. “Many instrumental teachers, particularly those who don’t have a classroom teaching qualification, just don’t have the skills or experience to do this effectively. You’ve got quite a lot of kids who aren’t interested and the ones who are really interested get frustrated by the slow pace and often end up giving up, anyway.”

But with a growing number of self-employed people in the workforce, ensuring children are getting access to high-quality teaching could become even more difficult. Lomas points out that, from September, she will no longer be observed teaching or get a yearly appraisal. And she’s not sure if she’ll be able to afford to go on training courses, which were free when she worked for the music service.

Some local authorities have started publishing lists of licensed or accredited teachers (often those who previously worked for a music service), but these schemes generally do not come with training or professional development opportunities. And, according to a report from the Musicians’ Union, some councils want to charge teachers to be on their lists.

It’s not all bad news. When 100 instrumental and vocal teachers were made redundant in Milton Keynes in 2013, a group of them formed a co-operative providing tuition in the area, in and out of schools. Its 60 members are self-employed, but working together allows them to share marketing and admin and offer training.

The Cornwall Music Service Trust was formed by former music service teachers after 90 of them were made redundant last year. The charity, which covered its set-up costs through crowdfunding, has secured contracts from the local music hub to provide whole-class instrumental teaching and group ensembles but is “completely self-financing, and can’t make a loss” says one of its founders, piano teacher Steve Hawker. Similar schemes operate in Newcastle, Swindon and Grimsby, and several are in development in other areas, including the Isle of Wight, where the music service was recently closed.

So is independence the future for music services? For some, it may be the only option. The government announced £18m of additional funding for music education last year, but this is guaranteed for only a year and it has not yet been confirmed whether funding will continue for the National Plan for Music.

While the money the government set aside for music hubs was never intended to replace local authority funding for music services, some have taken this as a green light to cut funding completely. Jonathan Savage, reader in education at the Institute of Education, Manchester Metropolitan University, says he is aware of a number of music services that have not received local authority funding for some time. “We have a postcode lottery in terms of music education in this country,” he says. “The costs associated with learning to play an instrument, take part in an ensemble or engage in other musical activities have never been so variable depending on where you live. The mixed economy, whereby some funding comes from government and some is supposed to come from local authorities, allows the government to pass the blame to others.”

The schools minister, Nick Gibb says: “This government is committed to making sure all children have the same opportunities. We have allocated £390m in music education between 2012 and 2016. Music hubs are required to ensure every child has the opportunity to learn an instrument and that for those who wish to continue there are clear and affordable routes.”

But Deborah Annetts, chief executive of the Incorporated Society of Musicians, says: “If music services continue to close or lose local authority funding, there is a real risk that music education will become the preserve of those who can afford it.”

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