Arts Council England’s (ACE) grant application portal Grantium stopped functioning on 23 July and, as of 13 August, remains down. In light of the ongoing technical issues, ACE have since taken the decision to temporarily pause applications for National Lottery Project Grants.
Paul Fleming, General Secretary of Equity, commented on the shutdown of ACE’s Grantium portal saying:
"Members of Equity are expressing concern about the ongoing issues with Arts Council England’s application portal, Grantium. The loss of access to the portal leaves many wondering about the status of their applications, and the announced pause to National Lottery Project Grants will create real problems for those relying on project applications to keep work going into the autumn.
"The suspension of applications for access support will also disadvantage members facing access barriers, who may be unable to progress applications without it. This will further frustrate the process for some disabled artists, in a manner that is potentially discriminatory.
"Following hot on the heels of ACE’s announcement that NPO organisations will have to reapply to see their funding extended for another year, this system meltdown is just the latest in a litany of governance failures. Every time it is struggling artists who ultimately pay the price.
"All of this demonstrates that the government review of ACE must be bold in its ambitions, proposing widespread reforms that will build an organisation focused on supporting artists to thrive across England, through a long term vision for regional arts growth. After the mess of the last few years, any reform package must include personnel changes at the top.
"In the meantime, we are calling on ACE to secure access to draft applications as quickly as possible, fast-track applications for proposals for work happening during the outage, secure better support for disabled artists and provide daily updates on progress towards restoring the application system."
