Tate has cut short a number of its internships in the wake of a policy change in favour of paying interns. Until recently Tate offered unpaid ‘volunteer’ positions on both full- and part-time bases for between three and eighteen months. But in February this year, Tate interns were told that the policy change meant they could no longer continue beyond three-months. An MA student who took up a one-day-a-week internship at Tate in December, believing she would stay in the role until the end of the summer, told AP that she was informed at the end of February that she would have to leave in March. As her official position was termed ‘voluntary’, she had not signed a contract. She said: “I was told I was almost certainly one of the last unpaid interns that Tate would employ.” According to the Museums Journal, until recently Tate has relied upon the contribution of well over 100 unpaid interns. Its new policy appears to reflect Museums Association guidelines (but not Arts Council England guidelines) that unpaid positions should be limited to a maximum of three months. A Tate spokesperson confirmed to AP that all interns except those working on placement schemes as part of their degrees will in future be contracted and paid as employees; with the aim of making the internship programme “accessible to all including to those from a more disadvantaged socio-economic background.”
