A row over the non-payment of fees to authors and speakers at the Oxford Literary Festival has forced the charity running it to re-consider its approach (Access All Areas).

One of the festival’s patrons, author Phillip Pullman, has resigned over the matter, with it being noted that he is also the President of the Society of Authors, a body that campaigns for its members to receive fair payment for speaking at literary festivals. The festival’s organiser Sally Dunsmore has pleaded poverty on account of being a charity that gets no government funding but has agreed to review the question of speaker fees and consider amending its policy after the April event.

Some organisers get around the problem of no budget for speakers by paying them in wine which comes out of the F&B budget, an aspect our Inland Revenue classifies as payment in kind, and taxable.