Bullying & Harassment Roundtable

Roundtable on Tackling Bullying, Harassment and Discrimination in the Creative Industries

Since June 2021, Creative UK has been working with the UK Government’s Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) to convene a series of industry roundtables with representatives from film and television, music, advertising, games, publishing, theatre, and fashion along with key unions, the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (ACAS), and people with lived experience.

Within this roundtable approach, industry leaders agreed to work together to reduce instances of bullying, harassment and discrimination as key to bringing culture change to our industries.

Roundtable attendees have committed to the achievement of three key outcomes:

• Prevent – preventing bullying and harassment issues from arising through ensuring codes of conduct are implemented and training that is joined up and clearly visible to those working in the creative industries.
• Protect – protecting those who have faced bullying or harassment by ensuring they are able to easily access independent advice and support.
• Monitor – monitoring industry’s successful implementation of its codes of conduct, training and support, to assess the long-term impact of initiatives to tackle bullying and harassment to ensure effectiveness of support.

There is already a lot of good work happening across the cultural sector and creative industries with initiatives such as Time’s Up UK, the Film & TV Charity’s Bullying Advice Service, timeTo in advertising, the BFI’s set of principles and Safe Space in music. However, there are gaps in support, particularly for freelancers, the self-employed and those on short term or informal contracts, that the roundtable are keen to address. Roundtable attendees are supporting the establishment of the Creative Industries Independent Standards Authority (CIISA) which will uphold and improve standards of behaviour across the Cultural and Creative Industries in efforts to prevent and tackle all forms of bullying and harassment.

As CIISA develops independently from the industry roundtable approach, the roundtable’s focus is shifting to how it can monitor bullying and harassment levels and initiatives to assess their effectiveness in driving long term impact. The roundtable will build on work already undertaken by various sub-sectors in assessing the scale of the problem and in identifying best practice for addressing bullying and harassment that can be shared industry wide.

Roundtable Member Organisations 

Creative UK | Time’s Up UK | Personal Managers Association | Spotlight | Company 42 | Independent Talent | UK Music | BPI | PRS Foundation | Music Managers Forum |  Nostromo Management | Keychange | Independent Society of Musicians | Film and TV Charity | BAFTA | BFI | UK Theatre and Society of London Theatre | British Fashion Council (BFC) | British Fashion Model Agents Association | Advertising Association | UKIE | Publishers Association | Equity | Musicians Union | Bectu | PACT | ACAS | DCMS

Roundtable Readouts