Accountability

Accountability & Transparency at Fierce

This page was last revised  05/12/2023

Since its inception in 1997 Fierce has always been a fiercely political organisation. The first edition of Fierce was called Queerfest, but changed name in 1998 to better reflect its wider intersectional interests. Fierce has a history of championing a wide range of voices through its programme and its team. Notably, all four artistic directors in Fierce’s history were aged between 27 and 31 when starting the job and the senior management has always reflected a wide breadth of protected characteristics.

We value deep conversations, with artists, with audiences, with partners, with friends and with each other about things we really believe matter. We hope that Fierce can act as a space where we can all dream up potential new futures together.

We first published this page in 2020, a year which exposed huge levels of inequity in our society and saw numerous struggles for liberation reach mainstream conversation all whilst capitalism desperately clung onto its desire to maintain the white supremacist, patriarchal and able-bodied status quo. Our thinking here was informed by numerous different discourses and events and this list continues to grow:

• COVID-19, the inequality it has exposed and the damage it has done to the arts & cultural sector
• The 2020 Black Lives Matters uprising (and from this deeply embedded institutional racism across much of the arts)
• The current trans and non-binary revolution and unrelenting attempts to derail this.
• The disability rights movement, including the We Shall Not Be Removed principles from the UK Disability Arts Alliance, as well as our own thoughts and experiences around access, and how we can make things better for others
• Decolonisation, denial of Britain’s history and the necessity to decolonise our society, our institutions and our curating practices.
• Equity, Advantage and class privilege – our relationship and feelings about this
• The work of First Nations and Indigenous artists and land acknowledgement (particularly in light of the Mayflower anniversary)
• Ongoing internal conversations about our own working culture and a desire to develop structures that work better for us as a team
• In 2022, when we worked with more freelancers than ever before, listening to the voices of those freelancers and reacting to their concerns around freelance rights and rates
• Working with a Steering Group on the Healing Gardens of Bab, bringing different perspectives into the organisation and devolving programming power
• Explorations into horizontal and collaborative leadership models which has led us to develop a model with three Co-Directors
• Calls for a universal basic income
• Widespread calls for greater transparency and accountability across the arts and culture sector
• Updating our recruitment processes
• Fierce turning 25 – acknowledging our status as an institution and celebrating/sharing Fierce’s history
• The election of far-right leaders internationally and the impact of this on marginalised peoples
• Witnessing global violence and acknowledging the impact of trauma this has

We continue to engage in wider dialogue on all of these topics. 

We acknowledge that there will always be more to do, and want to ensure 2020 was a catalyst for permanent change. We want to be the best version of Fierce possible, and ensure our own integrity. We’re not looking for a way to ‘complete’ this work (we don’t really think anyone can), but we want to get better at sharing the work we’re doing, and be more public about it, so people can dig into it, ask us questions, offer ideas, raise challenges and have conversations. We hope there’s a value to this being in the public domain and welcome conversation and questions on these thoughts. The Fierce team can be reached via email. We will update this page every six months.

Fierce Representational Statistics

In response to calls for organisations to publish information about their staff and programme makeup we hesitantly publish the following statistics. Hesitantly, because we are wary of reducing people to a series of tick boxes – no one is a tick box, but we think there is some value in doing this. The statistics have been gathered from anonymous staff monitoring forms and gathered from self published artist information in the public domain.

These figures include the core team (currently 4 people) and freelancers working across all our projects who are under contract at the time of publishing updates. This includes in 2022 Key to the City and the Healing Gardens of Bab as well as the festivals in 2022, 2019 and 2017. Future recruitment will focus on building a team that better embodies the disparate population of Birmingham and the communities we represent through our programming.

Fierce Festival Staff Team

Protected Characteristic	Representation Percentage Autumn 2023	Representation Percentage Spring 2023	Representation Percentage 2022	Representation Percentage 2021	Representation Percentage 2019	Representation Percentage 2017
Women Team Members	75%	80%	75%	80%	78%	78%
Team Members who are ethnically and culturally diverse, and who experience racism in our society	25%	20%	25%	40%	22%	22%
Disabled Team Members	25%	20%	25%	60%	33%	33%
Queer Team Members	75%	80%	50%	80%	44%	44%
Trans Team Members	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%

Fierce programmed artists

Protected Characteristic	Representation Percentage 2022	Representation Percentage 2019	Representation Percentage 2017
Women Artists	44%	52%	46%
Artists who are ethnically and culturally diverse, and who experience racism in our society	53%	30%	26%
Disabled Artists	18%	12%	9%
Queer Artists	77%	49%	56%
Trans Artists	14%	11%	16%

Artists on Fierce development programmes

Protected Characteristic	Fierce LAB 2022*	Fierce LAB 2019	Fierce FWD 2019
Women Artists	–	67%	71%
Artists who are ethnically and culturally diverse, and who experience racism in our society	100%	100%	43%
Disabled Artists	–	33%	29%
Queer Artists	–	50%	57%
Trans Artists	–	17%	14%

Current Action Points

We have generated this list of short, mid and long term aims regarding our work in this area with the intention of holding ourselves accountable ensuring necessary changes do happen. The final section includes things we have already actioned so you can see the work we have already done.

Short-term

• Interrogate our current commitment and track record of representation within our programme in relation to the make-up of the geographic location we live and work in, and make changes where required

This is an ongoing action: as of 2021, the population of Birmingham who are ethnically and culturally diverse and who experience racism in our society is 51%; from 2019 – 2022 we increased the representation of artists defining this way from 30% – 53% to reflect this. We have also increased the representation of artists with disabilities, however nationally this is 22% of the population so arguably, this needs to increase further.

• A continued commitment to open listening / making ourselves available – so people feel able to challenge us easily, always.

This is an ongoing action: the emails for every member of the team are available on the website and when we have opportunities including recruitment and artist open calls, we offer informal conversations and provide specific contact details for these. The Director (Artistic) offered local people the opportunity to meet with him as part of his work to get acquainted with the city and its people.

Mid-term

• Embed anti-racist approaches throughout, taking the approach of Accomplices:

• Working behind the scenes to create change
• Treating this work as a state of being, acting and practicing
• Keep our focus on the goal we’re working towards
• Finding ways to relinquish power

This is an ongoing action.

• Work with our partners and stakeholders to challenge them and have difficult and courageous conversations where we think they’re needed

This is an ongoing action.

• All Fierce team members to explore our own unconscious bias and whether training in this area could be useful.

• Continue to work with service providers/suppliers for Fierce contracts that are either Black, of African or Caribbean heritage, or Asian led OR can evidence strong anti-racist policy/thinking.

During 2022 we successfully made new relationships with more ethnically diverse providers and suppliers, notably documentors and designers and gave work to people we will work with again. 

• Explore becoming a Disability Confident organisation and work to achieve this. 

Fierce has registered for the Disability Confident Committed tier of this scheme which requires us to review recruitment practices and offer student placements to support disabled people wanting to work in the sector. We will continue to review our practices and explore steps to reaching the next tier of this scheme. 

• Explore more ethical options for banking to move away from the ‘Big Five’.

Following extensive research into different banking options, we will be moving to a new bank that is better suited to our needs and values.

• Explore ways of measuring and sharing our environmental impact to increase our accountability for this, potentially by benchmarking and sharing best practice with similar organisations.

Long-term

• Develop leadership succession plans and (public) timelines that help ensure those that come after us bring different and diverse voices to our own, continuing Fierce’s history of evolving staff representation. 

• Explore implementing fixed term contracts on certain Fierce staff positions so more voices get to take on leadership roles.

Completed

• Add full workforce history of Fierce to the website, allowing people to understand the full life and journey of the company, the people and voices who have shaped us over the years, and the careers we have contributed to and ensuring everyone is credited for their work

Details about the current team and lists of former team members can be found on our website here.

• Publish stats about the make-up of our workforce and artists we work with in relation to protected characteristic

This information is published on the Accountability page of our website and will be updated at relevant moments to encompass changes and programmes.

• Interrogate and improve our recruitment process to ensure it is as accessible as it can be, this is likely to include (but not be limited to):

• Applications in a range of formats (Audio, film, writing)
• Offering meetings with senior team to potential applicants who want toknow more about our position on specific issues (i.e. Black LivesMatters, Trans Rights) before applying
• Remove higher education qualifying criteria
• Send interview questions to applicants in advance
• Remove educational questions from the process
• Actively encouraging access documents / statements at the point ofadvertising
• Research relevant unions for Fierce, and encourage all staff to join

As recipients of a Weston Jerwood Creative Bursary, the Fierce team took part in a programme of organisational development that allowed us the time and space to interrogate our recruitment practices and enact changes that have improved accessibility. Feedback from two recent rounds of recruitment, including for this Bursary position, has been overwhelmingly positive thanks to these changes. You can read our Recruitment Policy here and our Working Culture statement here.

• Explore publishing team salaries on our website so the public can understand percentages of public money spent on team salaries

In response to the Pull Up or Shut Up campaign, the team discussed publishing our salaries on the website, but decided that, as no one at Fierce earns over £40,000 per year, there is not a concern that public money is being wasted or misspent in terms of salaries. We work with our Board to explore salary bandings and ensure that everyone at Fierce is paid fairly with salaries benchmarked against similar roles in the region.

• Publish the story of Fierce, how it began life as Queerfest, how it led notions of intersectional programming before intersectional was a word, how it has a history of exploring ideas of community / audience led programme ahead of its time (e.g. My Fierce Festival)

The story of Fierce can be found on our website, here.

• Improve our complaints procedures / policy – ensure equality measures and routes to challenge are embedded throughout all policy work

Our Complaints Policy and Procedure and our Grievance Policy and Procedure have both been updated to reflect our work on anti-racism and equality; we continue to take this into account as we review, renew and (re)write policies.

• Eliminate the use of abbreviations like BAME within the organisation

As we have renewed our policies and procedures, we have considered our language carefully and ensured that abbreviations like BAME have been removed. These terms are not used in any of our comms, either internal or external or when talking about our work or the organisations to funders, including Arts Council England. 

• Develop policies around staff mental health and well-being.

Fierce Policies

As part of this work, we have (re)developed several policies, many of which are internal but many of which are relevant to people who interact with Fierce as audiences, artists, and potential employees and partners. We share these policies below, acknowledging that this is not a complete list and that we review policies regularly with input from the whole team.

Fierce and Birmingham 2022 Festival

In 2022 Birmingham hosted the Commonwealth Games. This was one of the largest events ever to have taken place in Birmingham. Alongside the games was a programme of culture under the banner of the Birmingham 2022 Festival. As Fierce produced a number of projects within the context of Birmingham 2022 Festival we wanted to make clear that we understand the ethics of working within this context is difficult, at best.

Commonwealth is inherently bound up with Britain’s colonial past and present. Commonwealth is a tangible, official legacy of colonialism. Countless violent and abhorrent acts were committed in its name. Therefore we had to pause and reflect deeply before working with the Birmingham 2022 Festival. In engaging with the Birmingham 2022 Festival we do so from a place of criticality. We understand the wide range of opinions on whether to engage with this artistic context and think it is important that people adopt numerous different positions and approaches to dealing with this legacy. We have supported friends, colleagues, artists and audiences taking different critical positions and approaches.

We encourage people to read about Commonwealth’s history. We welcome debate and disagreement with our position and are happy to have conversations about this. If you would like to speak to Fierce about any of these issues the team can be reached via their contact emails on the ‘About Us’ section of the website.