Arts organisations and artists have said they are still in \u201cfunding limbo\u201d with mounting bills and uncertain futures after this summer\u2019s crash of Arts Council England\u2019s grant processing platform.<\/p>\n
ACE\u2019s online portal, Grantium, was used by artists to submit and manage funding applications. But when it crashed in July, it left thousands of applications for vital funding in doubt \u2013 a situation that persisted for several months until applications reopened in late September.<\/p>\n
Individual artists and leaders of arts institutions have said that, after the crash, they received less money than initially offered by ACE, which is also accused of revoking funding application extensions for organisations affected by the collapse of the portal.<\/p>\n
ACE claimed the outage was caused by the inability of Grantium to operate with high traffic at a time when the system was being updated. The arms-length arts funder currently distributes about \u00a3500m of public money and more than \u00a3250m of national lottery money annually, while employing 650 people.<\/p>\n
Grantium launched in 2016 and was heralded as a system that would \u201chelp to bring [ACE] into the 21st century<\/a>\u201d. It was supposed to cut out the bureaucracy of the old paper-based system, be \u201cfit for purpose\u201d and create estimated annual savings of \u00a31m for ACE.<\/p>\n But many people the Guardian spoke to described chaos and confusion in the aftermath of the Grantium shutdown.<\/p>\n Pui-Ka Cheng is the writer, director and fundraiser for Drift, an ACE-funded project that had performances at the Lowry\u2019s Aldridge Studio in Salford earlier this month.<\/p>\n Pui-Ka Cheng had to cover her project\u2019s expenses from her savings when its funding stalled. Photograph: Josh Cadogan Photography<\/p>\n Drift received approval from Grantium on 17 July, according to Cheng. But she encountered difficulties in submitting her bank account details shortly afterwards.<\/p>\n When Grantium started having problems, Cheng sent numerous emails, made phone calls and submitted inquiries through the ACE website \u201cwithout receiving proper assistance. Unfortunately, we only received incorrect links in response.\u201d<\/p>\n She added: \u201cWe have not received any funding from the Arts Council. Consequently, none of our team members have received artist fees and I have had to cover all expenses from my personal savings.\u201d<\/p>\n Grantium has been criticised for years by those who have to use it. In May 2024, an open letter was sent to Dame Mary Archer, who was at that time heading a review into ACE, which is now led by Margaret Hodge.<\/p>\n Figures including Shakespeare\u2019s Globe chief executive, Stella Kanu, Actors Touring Company boss, Matthew Xia, and Live Theatre artistic director, Jack McNamara, called for a \u201ctransformation\u201d of Grantium to make the grant process more \u201cstreamlined, equitable and transparent\u201d.<\/p>\n Pepa Duarte, an actor and theatre maker in London, said the outage caused problems for a \u00a328,000 grant she received from ACE for her touring exhibition Sharing Ingredients. Duarte said ACE ended up underpaying her by \u00a31,500 \u2013 money that would have covered her rent.<\/p>\n Pepa Duarte in A Fight Against by Pablo Manzi at the Royal Court Theatre Upstairs. Photograph: Tristram Kenton\/The Guardian<\/p>\n Grantium collapsed when Duarte was due to file her final report, which includes income and expenditure, and is needed before the final payment is received from ACE.<\/p>\n After weeks of being unable to submit her report, Duarte was asked to do it all manually in a Word document. \u201cI had to put my expenditure in line by line,\u201d she said. \u201cYou can imagine, with the amount of money these grants signify, trying to do it like that. I had nothing to support the maths of it all.\u201d<\/p>\n Duarte said that previously ACE would assist if an error was made or the final report missed, but after the Grantium crash, she struggled to get replies from ACE, which eventually claimed she had underspent and therefore her final payment was lowered.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n Get our weekly pop culture email, free in your inbox every Friday<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n \u201cThe difference in the money they\u2019re not paying me might be very little for them, but for me it\u2019s two or three months of rent,\u201d she said. \u201cArtists shouldn\u2019t be paying the price for the chaos they\u2019ve found themselves in.\u201d<\/p>\n Other arts professionals have described a \u201ccruel\u201d bureaucratic process where they seemed to be punished because of the extra workload caused by the Grantium crash.<\/p>\n Jo Hunter, the co-founder and chief executive of 64 Million Artists, the Gloucestershire-based arts provider, told the Guardian her organisation had been given an extension to apply for grant funding this summer.<\/p>\n But after the Grantium crash, the organisation was told that extension had been revoked, meaning that the company \u2013 which is closing its public arm \u2013 had to rethink the final few months of its programme and look elsewhere for funding.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was a \u2018computer says no\u2019 moment in which no one could seem to interrupt the system,\u201d she said. The musician Brian Eno eventually stepped in and donated \u00a310,000 but many organisations haven\u2019t been as fortunate.<\/p>\n Since the Grantium outage, arts unions have worked to highlight the impact the crash created for artists. In August, Equity said<\/a> the \u201csystem meltdown is just the latest in a litany of governance failures. Every time it is struggling artists who pay the price.\u201d<\/p>\n Reaction to ACE\u2019s new system and whether it offers an improvement on Grantium, has been mixed<\/a>. Daniel Bernstein, the chief executive of Emergency Exit Arts, said the system \u201cfeels clunkier\u201d.<\/p>\n Last month, the culture secretary, Lisa Nandy, said there would be no extra financial support<\/a> available to overhaul ACE\u2019s grant application system. \u201cIt is a matter for them,\u201d Nandy said. \u201cWe didn\u2019t get additional money in the spending review to give them a new system.\u201d<\/p>\n