What is left of the brief

Episode 14 · 52 mins

Thirty-four interviews inside agencies

A year of fieldwork told from inside the studios: what people agree to say, what they hold back until the end of the interview, and what only shows up under observation.

Episode 13 · 47 mins

Measuring job cuts in the communications sector

Sector figures do exist, they are partial and they arrive late. A discussion of what a union can actually count, and what it does with those counts at the bargaining table.

Episode 12 · 38 mins

A design school rewrites its curriculum

How a school decides to drop a production course and put a critique workshop in its place. The detailed account of a reform voted through in eighteen months.

Episode 11 · 44 mins

Freelancers and billing by the hour

Eleven years in practice, three changes of billing model. An interview on the ordinary economics of a creative occupation, with the figures to go with it.

Episode 10 · 42 mins

Reading a staff record without getting it wrong

A methodological episode. What a staff record captures, what it misses, and the commonest misreadings when two financial years are compared.