Arts organizations and individual artists across England continue to face financial uncertainty and mounting expenses months after the summer crash of Arts Council England's online grant processing system. The collapse of the Grantium portal in July left thousands of vital funding applications in limbo, creating a crisis that persisted for several months until applications finally reopened in late September.
The Arts Council England's online portal, Grantium, served as the primary platform for artists and organizations to submit and manage their funding applications. When the system crashed during the summer, it threw the futures of countless arts professionals into doubt, leaving many unable to access desperately needed financial support. Individual artists and leaders of arts institutions report that following the technical failure, they received significantly less money than initially promised by ACE, with some organizations also losing previously approved funding application extensions.
According to Arts Council England, the system outage resulted from Grantium's inability to handle high traffic volumes during a period when the platform was undergoing updates. As an arm's-length government arts funder, ACE distributes approximately $625 million in public funding and over $312 million in national lottery money annually while employing 650 staff members across the country.
Grantium was originally launched in 2016 and was promoted as a revolutionary system designed to bring ACE "into the 21st century." The digital platform was intended to eliminate the bureaucratic inefficiencies of the previous paper-based application system, create a more user-friendly experience, and generate estimated annual savings of $1.25 million for the Arts Council. However, many individuals who spoke with reporters described widespread chaos and confusion following the Grantium shutdown.
Pui-Ka Cheng, who serves as writer, director, and fundraiser for Drift, an ACE-funded project that featured performances at the Lowry's Aldridge Studio in Salford earlier this month, experienced firsthand the devastating impact of the system failure. According to Cheng, Drift received approval through Grantium on July 17, but she encountered significant difficulties when attempting to submit her bank account details shortly afterward.
When Grantium began experiencing problems, Cheng sent numerous emails, made countless phone calls, and submitted multiple inquiries through the ACE website without receiving adequate assistance. "Unfortunately, we only received incorrect links in response," she explained. "We 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."
The Grantium system has faced criticism for years from users who found it difficult to navigate and unreliable. In May 2024, an open letter was sent to Dame Mary Archer, who was leading a review of ACE at the time before Margaret Hodge took over the role. The letter was signed by prominent figures in the arts community, including Stella Kanu, chief executive of Shakespeare's Globe, Matthew Xia, head of Actors Touring Company, and Jack McNamara, artistic director of Live Theatre. These leaders called for a complete transformation of Grantium to make the grant application process more streamlined, equitable, and transparent.
Pepa Duarte, an actor and theater maker based in London, said the system outage created serious problems for a $35,000 grant she received from ACE for her touring exhibition "Sharing Ingredients." Duarte reported that ACE ultimately underpaid her by $1,875 – money that would have covered her rent expenses. The technical failure occurred when Duarte was scheduled to file her final report, which includes detailed income and expenditure information and must be completed before receiving the final payment from ACE.
After weeks of being unable to submit her report through the crashed system, Duarte was instructed to compile everything manually in a Word document. "I had to put my expenditure in line by line," she said. "You can imagine, with the amount of money these grants represent, trying to do it like that. I had nothing to support the calculations." Duarte noted that previously, ACE staff would provide assistance if errors were made or final reports were missed, but after the Grantium crash, she struggled to receive responses from the organization, which eventually claimed she had underspent her grant and therefore reduced her final payment.
"The difference in the money they're not paying me might be very little for them, but for me it's two or three months of rent," Duarte explained. "Artists shouldn't be paying the price for the chaos they've found themselves in." Her experience reflects a broader pattern where arts professionals describe facing a cruel bureaucratic process that seemed to punish them for the additional workload created by the Grantium crash.
Jo Hunter, co-founder and chief executive of 64 Million Artists, a Gloucestershire-based arts provider, told reporters that her organization had been granted an extension to apply for funding during the summer. However, following the Grantium crash, the organization was informed that their extension had been revoked, forcing the company – which is closing its public operations – to completely rethink the final months of its programming and seek alternative funding sources.
"It was a 'computer says no' moment in which no one could seem to interrupt the system," Hunter said. The situation became so dire that musician Brian Eno eventually intervened by donating $12,500 to the organization, though Hunter noted that many other organizations haven't been as fortunate in finding emergency support.
Since the Grantium outage, arts unions have worked actively to highlight the significant impact the crash has had on artists and arts organizations throughout England. In August, Equity, the performers' union, stated that "the system meltdown is just the latest in a litany of governance failures. Every time it is struggling artists who pay the price."
Reactions to ACE's replacement system and whether it represents an improvement over Grantium have been decidedly mixed among users. Daniel Bernstein, chief executive of Emergency Exit Arts, described the new system as feeling "clunkier" than its predecessor, suggesting that the technical issues may not have been fully resolved.
Last month, Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy announced that no additional financial support would be available to completely overhaul ACE's grant application system. "It is a matter for them," Nandy stated. "We didn't get additional money in the spending review to give them a new system," indicating that the Arts Council will need to address ongoing technical issues with existing resources.
In response to the criticism, an Arts Council England spokesperson acknowledged the problems while defending the organization's response efforts. "Following the technical issues we experienced over the summer, we devised new application processes to ensure artists and organizations could access our funding as straightforwardly as possible," the spokesperson said. "We're sorry for the disruption caused by the original outage and grateful for the patience applicants showed as we worked to put alternatives in place. These are now up and running, and working well."
The spokesperson also provided statistics on the organization's recent grant activity, stating: "Since that point, we have made over 3,900 grant payments totaling over $254 million to individuals and organizations around the country. When delivering any grant funding at this sort of scale, it's invariably the case that a small number of applicants will encounter some issues. Whenever this happens, we work as quickly as we can to put this right, so applications are processed and payments are made as swiftly as possible." Despite these assurances, many in the arts community remain concerned about the long-term reliability of the funding system and its impact on the financial stability of artists and cultural organizations across England.
