New Pensions For Artists Website

Almost 60% of people working in the arts are at risk of not saving adequately for their future... are you one of them? A new website backed by Arts Council England aims to help artists unravel the mystery of pensions. The website, www.pensionsforartists.org.uk, will allow people from across the arts to complete a short questionnaire about their pensions awareness. The site will also explain how recent changes to pensions legislation can benefit artists. As artists tend to be self-employed, they need to plan for their own pensions. The new website, which has been created using a small amount of Arts Council funding, wants to find out what kind of pension provision artists want and identify how their needs can be met.

It's part of our investment in the development of the economic status of individual artists, says Simon Zimmerman of Arts Council England. We have partnered with an organisation called the Customer Management Team to deliver a comprehensive market analysis of pensions provision across the arts. The Customer Management Team has already delivered similar work across the higher education and sports sectors for the Pensions Trust, a £2.5billion pension fund established in 1947 that specialises in providing pensions products for the voluntary and not-for-profit sectors.

Government legislation in April changed the rules on pension contributions to encourage more people to save for pensions. Previously, contributions were strictly controlled by the amount people earned and their age. The greatest benefit to artists is that they can now save more of their income during the periods when they are earning more and reduce their pension contributions during leaner times. Artists are predominantly self-employed people with a high degree of instability and insecurity within their working lives. This lifestyle impacts the way savings are viewed, said Joe McGrath of the Customer Management Team.

We want as many artists as possible to respond to the survey on the website,' he said. 'With the results, we aim to increase their awareness of the opportunities for tax efficient investment and, more generally, of the current pensions debate and how it impacts on them.

Ultimately we wish to improve the overall provision for, and take up of, pension services and products for artists in England across the art forms, said Joe. This information was provided courtesy of Ad-Venture Creative Industries Network.

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