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Gillian Bates muses on the potential impact of performance related pay.

It?s always been pretty clear to me that most of us working in the arts and cultural sector place the love of it ahead of the money. Why else would we put up with no agreed national pay scales, no recognised incremental wage ranges and no structured training programmes? People earning less than the average student teacher are in charge of £100,000 budgets, with all the worry and responsibility that entails.

This being the case, you would think that those in positions of financial power and management would be keen to get their heads around introducing some kind of structured pay levels for the sector. But what do they do instead? Introduce ?performance-related pay? that?s what! Isn?t that just the most divisive thing you have ever heard? Who could have dreamed that one up?

Low paid arts workers now have to sit with managers discussing their faults and aspirations and then set themselves ?targets?. They do this in the hope of gaining, after an agreed amount of time, the sort of bonus that people working in the City spend on one expense account dinner.

This is all to be ?confidential? of course. Confidential my arse! The one thing we do reward ourselves with in the arts is a bit of juicy gossip. You?d pretty much know when someone hadn?t got his or hers wouldn?t you? They?d turn from being a helpful pleasant colleague into a bitter, tight-lipped, sickie-throwing ?jobsworth? overnight. They?d clock in, clock off and generally be unhelpful to within an inch of a verbal warning. At the next office social they?d get really drunk and maudlin before ordering a company taxi to get them home. Then they?d take the next week off with ?flu?.

Performance related? There may be a place for it on Wall Street? but let?s get our basic pay packages sorted out before we consider ?enhancement?.

Gillian Bates is a journalist and Arts and Leisure Manager at Thoresby Park.
e: gillianbates@gkbmarketing.freeserve.co.uk;
w: http://www.thoresby.com