National Lottery Project Grants: Q&A with Darren Henley

When will National Lottery Project Grants Under £30k open?

We know how crucial the Under £30k strand of National Lottery Project Grants is to artists and organisations around the country. Let me give you some more detail about our plan for next few days. From Wednesday 10 September the strand will open for our first group of early users, and we'll steadily increase the number of people who have access in the days that follow. Phasing the reopening in this way will allow us to make sure that the new online application form is working well. Our access scheme for NLPG under £30k has been open for a while now, but from the week beginning Monday 15 September, we'll start sharing resources that will support everyone ahead of making an application. On Monday 22 September, the strand will open to all applicants. From that point, decisions will be shared with applicants ten weeks after submission.

What is an 'early user'? Is there any advantage to becoming one?

On 29 August, we asked individuals and organisations to get in touch with us if they were interested in being part of an early-users group, who would be given access to the new NLPG Under £30k application form ahead of it being available to all, in order to help us confirm that it was working well.

If you didn't fill out that survey - or if you did, and you haven't been approached to become an early user - please don't worry. While early users will get access to the form first, and will be able to submit their applications early, the applications themselves won't be considered any earlier than those made by anyone else. To be fair and consistent to all applicants, we'll only begin assessing and making decisions on applications once the programme is fully open to everyone.

What does the new online application form for NLPG under £30k look like, and can I get any support to help understand it?

It'll be an online form, and we've designed it with our users' experiences in mind. We hope the process will feel simple and straightforward, but we will make supporting resources available to guide you ahead of making your application.

The form will contain the same questions as before, so if you'd like to start planning your application now, you can take a look at them, here.

I'd begun an application on the old system, before the outage. Is there any way I can get hold of it?

We know that some people were partway through submitting their application and may have been worrying that they'd lost valuable work. All that information is still saved in our system and from Thursday 11 September, you will be able to request partially or completed NLPG applications, as well as activity report forms, via a form which will be available on our website. Once you send us your request, our team will carry out some security checks before sending the requested information to you.

What are the timings for the rest of the National Lottery Project Grant strands?

We've prioritised reopening the under £30,000 strand because it's by far the busiest - in fact, it accounts for more than 80% of all applications to NLPG. The next to open will be the £30,001-100,000 strand, which will be back online by Tuesday 30 September. Following on from that, the remaining three strands - Touring, Place Partnerships, and Major Projects - will all reopen in mid-October.

Will the pause to NLPG mean that less funding is available? Will it be harder to get funding because of high demand levels following the reopening?

No. While the pause to NLPG has meant that we haven't been able to accept applications, this won't have an effect on the amount of money we invest in individuals and organisations over the course of the year: the budget for the fund remains unchanged. While we do expect the number of applications to be higher than this time last year, to make up for the pause in August, this won't make a difference to the amount of funding available, or your chance of securing it as all of the money that would have been available in August will still be there.

What about Arts Council England's other programmes?

I want to reassure you that the majority of our services haven't been affected by this disruption, and we've continued to make payments to individuals and organisations throughout this period. Our funding of National Portfolio Organisations, Investment Principle Support Organisations, Music Hubs, and Creative People and Places programmes has gone ahead without pause; and we've announced and released £7.2 million of investment for the 589 successful applicants of the latest round of Developing Your Creative Practice. Our day-to-day work of issuing export licences, administering the Acceptance in Lieu and Cultural Gifts schemes, and processing Global Talent Visa applications, has continued as normal.

Of the services that were affected, we were able to get most back up and running within days. We set up new ways to send out funding decisions and take payment requests, developing a set of alternative application methods for individual funds. And our Supporting Grassroots Music Fund, Incentivising Touring Fund, Creative Foundations Fund, Museum Estate and Development Fund, and Libraries Improvement Fund are all now available to applicants.

I want to end by saying a sincere thank you for your patience as we have worked to put this right. Our team are here to support you, and we're looking forward to receiving your National Lottery Project Grant applications across all our strands over the coming weeks.