FAC Insights: Why the music industry needs an independent standards body to keep our talent artists safe with Jen Smith
FAC Insights is a forum for us to showcase and share long form pieces looking at various parts of the music industry and the society that shapes it. Pieces take the form of videos, interviews, discussions, articles and more.
This month we are thrilled to hear from Jen Smith, interim CEO at CIISA, where she explains why the music industry needs an independent standards body to keep our talent artists safe.
At the end of last year, in December 2023, X Factor finalist Rebecca Ferguson in an interview with The Guardian revealed that her proudest achievement was when she dared to challenge the establishment and campaign for a creative industry regulatory body following the extensive abuse she faced when she started out in the music industry. Giving evidence at a select committee last year Rebecca unveiled that as a young woman she was "fleeced" both "financially and morally" by executives and others in positions of power, whose conduct she said was part of a "rotten" culture. "Unfortunately there is a bullying culture to make artists behave how people want them to, often for others' commercial gains”, she said.
Rebecca revealed to the committee she was pressured into signing contracts; was denied royalties and medical attention; had personal and professional relationships deliberately wrecked; and was forced to carry on working after collapsing through exhaustion and having a miscarriage.
Sadly Rebecca is not alone, this abuse of power, and harassment that she faced as an artist in the music industry is widespread. Artists in the music industry are mostly freelancers, which means they are often left with no protection, no place to go to when they experience bullying and harassment. This new independent body, which we are calling CIISA, (which stands for the Creative Industries Independent Standards Authority), will offer a single point of accountability for people to report behaviours of concern.
With CIISA people will be able to access mediation, alternative dispute resolution, advice to get your issue to the right place. Our investigations panel will have a range of recommendations that they will make. The overriding golden thread for any standards authority is prevention from harm and workplace safety. So that’s absolutely the basis of how we make our recommendations, but they will always be fair, proportional considered and given by expert advisors skilled in this arena.
Our hope is that CIISA will not only exist to step in when things go wrong, but to inspire change across the creative industries. We also hope to have a preventative value simply by virtue of our existence and I think we will have a very positive role in shifting cultural norms of behaviour over time.
CIISA is an exciting, deliberately different intervention essential to break the cycle of harmful behaviour that we know is such a significant problem not just in music but across all the creative industries.
And our journey so far has been huge, in the Summer of 2022, all of the UK Broadcasters committed development monies to build CIISA. In January 2023 Society of London Theatres and UK Theatre voiced their support for CIISA as a significant and necessary intervention for the theatre sector, joined in March by the leading body for Music, UK Music and the BPI. And as referenced above, in April 2023, CIISA gave evidence to the Misogyny in Music Enquiry, and in June CIISA was endorsed within the Government's Sector Vision and is also a recommendation in the Policy and Evidence Centre's Good Work Review.
As we prepare to launch our services ready to take cases at the end of this year, we are calling on musicians to lend their voice to the amplify the value of CIISA for the music industry. Last year we made a short film with actors in film, together with a supporting quotes reel produced for us by Ridley Scott Associates, and we are keen to do the same in the coming weeks for music. We’d love to hear from you if you would like to be part of this important campaign film.
As Rebecca Ferguson, says, “There is an opportunity to change the way creatives are treated in our country; by supporting this you are making history. CIISA is a monumental step: they will support future creatives, which could include your children, grandchildren or family members. By supporting CIISA you are making our industry safer and impacting people’s lives in a very positive way.”