"The PRS have an arrangement with the folk world it is claimed, where monies collected from folk events are ring fenced and not paid to pop superstars."

Yes, but this only applies to festivals, not your local pub where there's a session or a folk club. If the pub is PRS licenced, and the guest is a member of PRS, then, as Anahata says, those guests can claim through the 'Small Gigs' scheme, but the licence money for all those thousands of other songs/tunes goes, as has been said, to the 'big stars' (not of the folk scene).

Barbara