2022/23

REVIEW OF THE YEAR

Our priorities

OUR PURPOSE

ALCS exists to support,
champion and fight for authors.

OUR VISION

We support our members' ability to write by increasing their income. By educating as many people as possible, we promote the respect of copyright.
We celebrate the value writers bring to our world, fighting for their rights and giving them a powerful collective voice.
We want all writers to thrive in our society. We make the complex easy.

By strengthening the core functions and leveraging our existing assets

By expanding and maximising the impact of the services we offer

By extending collections into new and emerging markets

By developing the influence of writers around the world through our advocacy strategy

By growing the membership in the right direction

Be bold

Take pride

Have an impact

Our core values

Chair's statement

I’m excited to be writing to you in my first statement as ALCS Chair, a role that I took on in July this year. Before my appointment as Chair, I spent six years as a member of the ALCS Board, building a thorough understanding of this unique organisation and its myriad challenges and opportunities.

I’m fortunate to have taken on the role at a pivotal point in ALCS’ story. In March, our payment to members was our biggest single distribution to the largest number of members in our 46-year history. I would love to guarantee that this will continue to increase, but it is an uncertain and unsteady world and ALCS income is no different.

Much work is being done by the team behind the scenes to preserve and build on many of the long-standing income streams that we receive for writers. At the same time, we’re also focused on the future and how writers’ works are being used in the digital world to ensure that wherever your works are used, you’re remunerated fairly.

We’re also working hard to understand the many issues surrounding generative artificial intelligence (AI) and writers. This includes exploring what an effective policy response will look like. There are no easy answers to this situation, but we have developed a set of principles for policymakers that we hope echo your sentiments. It’s a topic I have particular interest in. I want to see a future where creators can use AI to their advantage, while avoiding significant harm from a misguided approach to its exploitation. But there should be no use without payment.

Closer to home, I’m pleased to announce two new additions to the Board of Directors. There was no election this year, but two new writers were co-opted to the Board for the specific skills that they bring to ALCS. Kit Fan and Edwin Thomas both have a wealth of knowledge about corporate governance, risk and finance as well as their exceptional literary talent. I’m looking forward to working with them both in the coming months and years.

Corporate governance is one of the essential building blocks of an effective organisation, so it is crucial that we get it right. With that in mind, we are embarking on a review of our corporate governance and the structure of our board and committees to ensure we are working in an optimal way. I will report back on any changes we make.

Finally, we are developing our approach to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion for staff and members and how we as an organisation can play our part in considering environmental issues in the way we do business. We will be implementing these positive changes in our business going forwards and will be reporting on them in future communications with our members.

As Chair, I'm looking forward to representing writers and their needs at all levels. Here’s to all the next year has in store for us creators.

TOM CHATFIELD, ALCS CHAIR

CEO's statement

After 16 years as Deputy Chief Executive, I was delighted to have been selected by the Board last year to succeed Owen Atkinson as Chief Executive. We worked closely together for many years, so I am well aware of the challenges as well as the opportunities that lie ahead for ALCS, as we strive to maximise income for you, our members.

It’s been a busy first year. We collected a record £43.4million, our highest ever amount and 9.8% more than the previous year. We also paid out a record £44.8million to our members, an increase of 9.3% over 2021-22 figures. Our goal now is to continue to collect as much as we can from all sources as we know how important the payments are to members.

Despite the UK no longer being in the EU we maintain excellent relations with our European partners and continue to work closely with them to ensure we collect the fees due for your works.

Closer to home, we continue to foster excellent relationships with the Copyright Licensing Agency who licence and collect around two-thirds of ALCS’ income, as well as with their members DACS, PICSEL and Publishers’ Licensing Services. Our relationships with the writers’ unions remain strong and always proactive on issues pertinent to our members.

This year, we have developed our strategy on potential revenue generating opportunities and commissioned various research projects to arm us with evidence where writers may be missing out on fees. With growing concerns around the rapid acceleration of large language models and other forms of AI, we’ve created principles for the responsible and fair use of writers’ works in relation to these technologies. Our thanks to our members who have helped shaped our thinking through focus groups and other avenues. We will be reporting on progress at future AGMs.

Internationally, our efforts at the World Intellectual Property Organisation in Geneva were successful as they granted a study into Public Lending Right – we hope the results will support our advocacy work as we seek to inform governments around the world of the benefits of PLR. This study could result in the creation of more PLR schemes around the world, which would greatly benefit writers and visual artists across the globe.

Finally, I’d like to thank the Board and all my colleagues for their hard work in this record breaking year for ALCS. Their support and dedication to our purpose - to support, champion and fight for authors – is what makes ALCS the success it is today.

BARBARA HAYES, ALCS CEO

KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATORS

Highlights from the year

It was a record distribution year. We paid £44.8m to over 100,000 members for the first time.

The World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) agreed to do a study into Public Lending Right (PLR).

We started a major strategic systems IT project.

We promoted copyright education through our partnership with the National Literacy Trust as well as by sponsoring the Yoto Carnegie Medals, the CLiPPA poetry award and National Poetry Day.

We supported 21 writing initiatives through our Cultural Support and Development Fund.

We funded research into authors' earnings which revealed a sustained fall in professional writers' incomes, an alarming trend that we want to fix.

Our IT systems all moved into the cloud.

ReTeach was nominated for the Education Resources Award.

Our Staff

ALCS has a committed workforce of staff, who work in a hybrid way but who all come together 4 times a year.

Our Leadership

ALCS is led by a Senior Management Team of six.

Distribution & Membership Committee

The Distribution & Membership Committee reviews the policy framework for ALCS in relation to those parts of the operations facilitating the payment of fees to members and proposes developments and changes in policy and procedure to the Board. It also reviews and advises on the recruitment of, and services for, members.

Nominations Committee

The Nominations Committee reviews and makes recommendations to the Board on such matters as Committee membership (non-executive and externals), co-options to the Board and recruitment at Board level as and when appropriate.

Advocacy Advisory Committee

The role of this working party is to advise and support the Board in relation to political developments and how this may impact on the work of ALCS.

Remuneration Committee

The Remuneration Committee reviews, analyses and makes recommendations to the Board on matters pertaining to the remuneration policy.

Finance & Audit Committee

The Finance & Audit Committee monitors the financial, accounting, investment, taxation and associated matters affecting the Company’s performance and reports back to the Board as requested or as appropriate.

Strategic Systems Project Oversight and Scrutiny Committee

This Committee monitors the activities and performance of the executive team and the supplier who are responsible for developing the new ALCS systems and reports back to the Board and to the membership at the AGM. This is a limited time committee.

Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG)

Our ESG framework supports the positive impact we want our organisation to have,
both for the ALCS staff and our writer members.

ALCS exists to support,
champion and fight for authors.

ENVIRONMENTAL

Building resilience for the long term

Environmental and Social Policy

SOCIAL

Ensuring equitable access to opportunity

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Policy
Health and Safety Policy
Modern Slavery Statement
Ethical Investments Policy
Whistleblowing Policy
Hybrid working

GOVERNANCE

Encouraging a culture of ethics and accountability

Risk Management
Corporate Governance

The Board of Directors of ALCS, the CEO and staff are committed to our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Policy. We will actively promote Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, and will proactively address any activities or behaviours that may jeopardise this policy.

We aim to create an environment where we can all work harmoniously, feel valued, appreciated and included, irrespective of age, culture, disability, education attainment, ethnicity, gender, health (including mental health status), marital status, politics, race, religion, sexual orientation, socio-economic class or upbringing.

We are an equal opportunity employer, which allows equal opportunity for employment and progression in the organisation on the basis of ability, qualifications and aptitude for the work. Every employee will be treated equally and have the right to a harmonious work environment where an individual is treated fairly and with dignity and respect.

In order to attract, recruit, retain and develop high quality talent at all levels across the organisation we will follow an approach based on:

Equality – As an organisation we will aim to remove all possible discrimination to ensure equal opportunity at all levels.

Diversity – We will embrace diversity at all levels and ensure everyone is valued and appreciated for their contributions. A diverse workplace is best achieved through working together.

Inclusion – We will create an environment where everyone is included, differences are accepted and valued to bring in all the diverse forces together. We aim to be an organisation where people feel connected, respected, appreciated and involved in organisational success.

ROBERT YARWOOD

Head of Technology

Rob joined ALCS in 2006 as Membership Services Coordinator after flirting with a career as a publican and then a civil servant.

After growing the data analysis capability within the Member facing team, Rob switched focus to IT in 2013 to manage the ongoing support and development of the bespoke business systems used by ALCS to manage it’s member relationships, works repertoires, and our royalty collection, allocation and distribution processes.

Rob is passionate about harnessing the power of technology to benefit the non-profit sector, and more directly to deliver an easy to use and efficient, data-enabled service to ALCS Members. After delivering development and digital transformation projects over the last ten years Rob is now responsible for setting the overall technology strategy in alignment with business goals.

BARBARA HAYES

Deputy Chief Executive

Barbara started her career in direct marketing. Having spent seven years in the US designing and marketing properties, she returned to the UK to work within the International Department of a major multinational HR consultancy.

Barbara joined the Authors’ Licensing & Collecting Society in January 2004 where she focussed initially on HR. She then took over responsibility for Communications and Membership, looking at ways in which ALCS raises its profile amongst the membership, potential members and the public in general and devising successful marketing and membership recruitment strategies.

She has also been involved with the work of the All Party Writers Group, seeking opportunities to bring issues regarding writers to the attention of the appropriate parliamentarians.

Barbara represented ALCS for a number of years on the Board of The Society of Audiovisual Authors (SAA) or Société des Auteurs Audiovisuels. In November 2015 Barbara became Chair of the SAA.

In 2016 Barbara became Chair of PLR International.

ALISON BAXTER

Head of Communications

Alison joined ALCS in 2000 as a ‘royalties administrator’, took the role of membership secretary shortly afterwards, and moved into the communications department in 2004. In 2014 she became Head of Communications at ALCS.

Alison has a CIM marketing diploma, is a qualified project manager and has a background in visual arts. Her team at ALCS have overseen the development of several websites, organised more than 18 AGM’s around the country (and more recently online) and sent several million copies of ALCS News to members via email.

She’s been asking members to give ALCS their email addresses for the last 20 years and hasn’t given up yet.

Her spare time is mainly devoted to chasing her two children and a wayward dog around the park.

RICHARD COMBES

Head of Rights and Licensing and Deputy Chief Executive

Richard joined the ALCS legal team in 2002, having previously worked in private practice, and became Head of Rights and Licensing in 2007.

His work at ALCS focuses on the development of collective rights and licensing schemes in the UK and internationally, aimed at providing writers with fair remuneration for the re-use of their work. This role involves a significant degree of partnership and collaboration with other UK writers’ organisations and licensing bodies as well as authors’ societies and collecting agencies around the world.

Richard’s department is also responsible for engaging with UK and EU policy on copyright and authors’ rights – an area of growing prominence on the political agenda – by drafting responses to government consultations, preparing Ministerial briefings and setting the agenda for the All Party Writers’ Group.

Richard represents ALCS on the Boards of the British Copyright Council and the Educational Recording Agency, of which he is currently Vice-Chair.

MARK BISPHAM

Chief Financial Officer

Mark is a member of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants and a graduate of the University of Kent. He is also a Non-Executive Director of Ignite Film Fans.

After many years in retail and FMCG (latterly as UK Finance Director at Fosters), Mark spent the next 13 years business partnering the owners of complex, fast-growing, entrepreneurial SME and start-up businesses in media and multi-site hospitality.

In April 2017, he became Group Chief Financial officer for both ALCS and the Copyright Licensing Agency.

COLETTE SCOURSE

Head of Membership Services & Operations

Colette joined ALCS in 2003 as Broadcast Media Manager. She subsequently took over the management of the then newly expanded Membership Services and Recruitment team. Having spent the last 15 years building the membership up to 100,000, in 2019 she became Head of Membership Services and Operations.

She looks after the customer services and membership recruitment departments as well as the published and audiovisual teams of the Operations department. Her aim is to maximise the income that writers receive from ALCS whilst providing them with a top notch customer services experience.

Colette’s previous roles include working for a management consultancy specialising in change management and internal communications where she headed up a team of project coordinators. She also spent a number of years living overseas in France, Finland and Portugal teaching English as a foreign language.

Colette lives in South London with her husband, two children and their dog.

KIT FAN

Non-Executive Director

Kit Fan is a poet, novelist and critic. His most recent poetry collection is The Ink Cloud Reader (2023).

His second collection As Slow As Possible (2018) was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation and The Irish Times Book of the Year. His first collection Paper Scissors Stone (2011) won the Hong Kong University International Poetry Prize. He was shortlisted twice for the Guardian 4th Estate BAME Short Story Prize, and a winner of Northern Writers Awards for Poetry and Fiction, Times Stephen Spender Poetry Translation Prize, and POETRY’s Editors Prize for Reviewing. His debut novel is Diamond Hill (2021). He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2022.

JOANNE HARRIS

Non-Executive Director

Elected by the membership in January 2019

Joanne Harris is the author of 19 novels, including Chocolat, as well as scripts, libretti, short story collections and cookbooks.

Her work has been published in over 50 countries and has collected a number of British and international honours and awards. She is an honorary Fellow of St Catharine’s College, Cambridge, and in 2013 was granted an MBE by the Queen. She has been a judge of numerous prizes, including the Orange, the Whitbread, the Desmond Elliot, the Betty Trask and the Royal Society Winton Prize for Science. An ex-teacher turned professional author, she is also currently Chair of the Society of Authors.

MAGGIE GEE

Non-Executive Director

Maggie Gee OBE enjoyed serving writers on the ALCS Board of Directors between 2015 and 2021, and is happy to be back in 2022. Writing is a tough business and she has always thought writers are stronger when united.

She has published 17 books, including The Ice People, My Cleaner, The White Family, shortlisted for the Women’s Prize (new edition with introduction by Bernardine Evaristo, 2022), My Animal Life, a writer’s memoir, Virginia Woolf in Manhattan, Blood, a satire on Brexit Britain that was on the Sunday Times’s ‘Best Literary Novels 2019’ and ‘Best Summer Reading 2019’ lists, and most recently The Red Children (2022), a fable about global warming, migration, love and the secret life of birds and animals.

She has been translated into 15 languages.

TOM CHATFIELD

Chair

Dr Tom Chatfield is a British author, broadcaster and tech philosopher.

Tom’s non-fiction books exploring digital culture, including How To Thrive in the Digital Age (Pan Macmillan) and Live This Book! (Penguin), have appeared in over thirty languages. His bestselling critical thinking textbooks, including Critical Thinking and How to Think (SAGE), are used in schools and universities across the world. His debut novel, This is Gomorrah (Hodder), was a Sunday Times thriller of the month, shortlisted for the CWA Steel Dagger, and won France’s 2020 Prix Douglas Kennedy for the year’s best foreign thriller. A member of the British Library Advisory Council, Tom writes, lectures and consults internationally, with a special interest in critical thinking, Artificial Intelligence and tech ethics.

JAMES MCCONNACHIE

Non-Executive Director

He wrote a critically acclaimed study of the Kamasutra, The Book of Love, and is the author of numerous Rough Guides, from Paris and Nepal to Conspiracy Theories and Sex. He is a Sunday Times critic, the editor of The Author (the quarterly journal of the Society of Authors) and, much to his surprise, an agony uncle for the Metro newspaper. He is currently working on a book about the Himalayas, due to be published by Bloomsbury.

HELEN BLAKEMAN

Non-Executive Director

Helen is a BAFTA and International Emmy Award winning writer, both of which she received for her TV screenplay adaptation of ‘Dustbin Baby’ (BBC/Kindle Entertainment) starring Juliet Stevenson, David Haig and Dakota Blue Richards. She wrote the much acclaimed and controversial film ‘Pleasureland’ for Kudos/Channel 4 (BAFTA, RTS nomination) and has scripted numerous episodes of ‘Hollyoaks’ (Lime Pictures/C4). Helen has also written for the much-loved series, ‘Call the Midwife’.

Helen began her career in theatre writing the award-winning plays - ‘Caravan’, ‘Normal’ and ‘The Morris’.

For TV, Helen is also the creator, lead writer and associate producer of the BAFTA nominated CBBC series ‘Hetty Feather’, based on the best-selling children’s novel by Jacqueline Wilson – which ran for six series.

Helen is currently writing for animation with Xilam Animation, Paris, as well as developing her own projects. She is also co-founder of Heroic Books – a genre publishing and production company. Helen is the former chair of the Children’s BAFTA committee and a trustee of the Liverpool Everyman & Playhouse Theatres. Helen joined ALCS as a Board Member in December 2021.

DIANE REDMOND

Non-Executive Director

Di Redmond has written scripts for most of the major broadcasters – Nickelodeon, CBBC, Cbeebies, ITV, CITV, Aardman TV, Channel 4 and Siriol TV Wales, in Europe she’s been commissioned by the Disney Channel, ZDF, KIKA Germany, Universal TFI France, Content Film and TV Finland, KETNET Belgium and RSK Norway, in North America she’s written for HIT NYC, the Jim Henson Company and CBC Canada.

Apart from film and television she’s worked for BBC Radio, nationally and locally, and published over 100 books with most of the major publishing houses. She’s written for the stage, has been a successful ghost writer and her on-going work Bomb Girls (a WW2 Saga series commissioned by Penguin) is rated on Amazon’s top 100 bestseller list. Di’s passion for campaigning on behalf of her fellow writers has led her to work with the All Party Writers’ Group in Parliament and the Society for Audiovisual Writers (SAA) in Europe.

OKECHUKWU NZELU

Non-Executive Director

Elected by the membership in June 2021

Okechukwu Nzelu is a Manchester-based writer.

In 2015 he was the recipient of a Northern Writers’ Award from New Writing North. In 2020 his debut novel, The Private Joys of Nnenna Maloney (Dialogue Books/Little,Brown), won a Betty Trask Award and was shortlisted for the Betty Trask Prize, the Desmond Elliott Prize, and the Polari First Book Prize.

His second novel, Here Again Now, will be published by Dialogue Books in March 2022. He is a Lecturer in Creative Writing at Lancaster University.

Photo credit: Martin Glackin

EDWIN THOMAS

Non-Executive Director

Elected by the membership in January 2017

Edwin Thomas is the author of seventeen historical thrillers and adventure novels, mainly under his pen-name Tom Harper. First published in 2003, his books have since been translated into over 20 languages worldwide and featured on bestseller lists in the UK and abroad.

His books include Lost Temple, The Orpheus Descent and Black River. Recently, he has also collaborated with the South African adventure writer Wilbur Smith to continue Smith’s record-breaking Courtney series.

Edwin is a former Chair of the Crime Writers’ Association and the Harrogate History Festival, and a director of the Historical Writers’ Association. He lives in York with his wife and two sons.

2022/23

REVIEW OF THE YEAR

Our priorities

OUR PURPOSE

OUR VISION

Be bold

Take pride

Have an impact

Our core values

Chair's statement

CEO's statement

KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATORS

Highlights from the year

Our Staff

Our Leadership

BARBARA HAYES

RICHARD COMBES

MARK BISPHAM

ALISON BAXTER

COLETTE SCOURSE

ROBERT YARWOOD

Our Board

TOM CHATFIELD

HELEN BLAKEMAN

KIT FAN

MAGGIE GEE

JOANNE HARRIS

JAMES MCCONNACHIE

OKECHUKWU NZELU

DIANE REDMOND

EDWIN THOMAS

The Committees

Distribution & Membership Committee

Nominations Committee

Advocacy Advisory Committee

Remuneration Committee

Finance & Audit Committee

Strategic Systems Project Oversight and Scrutiny Committee

Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG)

ENVIRONMENTAL

SOCIAL

GOVERNANCE

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Policy (EDI)

ROBERT YARWOOD

BARBARA HAYES

ALISON BAXTER

RICHARD COMBES

MARK BISPHAM

COLETTE SCOURSE

KIT FAN

Non-Executive Director

JOANNE HARRIS

Non-Executive Director

MAGGIE GEE

Non-Executive Director

TOM CHATFIELD

Chair

JAMES MCCONNACHIE

Non-Executive Director

HELEN BLAKEMAN

Non-Executive Director

DIANE REDMOND

Non-Executive Director

OKECHUKWU NZELU

Non-Executive Director

EDWIN THOMAS

Non-Executive Director