Five ways to help the self employed - RSA

Five things YOU can do to help boost the living standards of the self employed

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  • Employment
  • Enterprise
  • Social enterprise

As a ‘think and do’ tank, we want the reports we write to have practical impact. We see RSA Fellows as playing a crucial role in this. Mark Pallis, Head of Project Engagement at the RSA explains how you can help change things for the Self-Employed.

Our recent report on Self Employment makes a series of practical recommendations about ways to help make the lives of self-employed people more liveable. These include:

  • Opening up Statutory Maternity Pay and Statutory Paternity Pay
  • Introducing a ‘Right to Request’ for more flexible payment terms in the housing market
  • Presenting a compulsory question for enrolment onto a pension or ISA scheme
  • Creating a social enterprise with a ‘cash-pooling’ service
  • Fully open up the new Fit for Work service to the self-employed

Here are five things that Fellows can do to help us make an impact in this area:

  1. Share the report or the summary infographic with others e.g. through Twitter and Facebook
  2. Let us know what you think of the ideas in the report by commenting on Ben Dellot’s blog (Ben will respond to all comments)
  3. Connect us with influencers who could enact our ideas e.g. in banks, insurance companies and mortgage providers. Please email Benedict.Dellot@rsa.org.uk
  4. Take forward our proposals e.g. run your own randomised meet-ups for business owners, or let us know about similar things you are already doing by writing a blog
  5. Implement your own ideas for supporting the self-employed e.g. by applying for a grant or Crowdfunding support through RSA Catalyst

If you have any other ideas or suggestions, please feel free to write them in the comments below, or write directly to mark.pallis@rsa.org.uk .

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  • Picture of Tracy Ann Essoglou

    I have a disruption for your more scene-versed insight. The same companies, orgs, associations and individuals who will always have money to pay for IT support, a plumber, an event team will consistently use the 'no money' excuse for not paying for intellectual contributions to their project, product, service... I wrote a piece on this while in Croatia in 2011 and after being back here now two years, have encountered the same thing.
    My gut (and cross-continental observation) tells me that in part this has to do with the idea that a consultant must be 'highly paid,' or be 'brought in under a full project contract'.
    The idea I would like to suggest is that we entertain paying for concept/intellectual capital 'fixes' and 'add-ons' - not that every appt, lunch or meeting results in payment but that at least on the inc side, we start to think about how to make $x an hour available for visiting fasttrackers, idea de/re-railers, fresh eyes...  your thoughts?