Key information for 2023-26 NPOs and IPSOs 

What is a Relationship Framework?

The Relationship Frameworks set out how we’ll work with National Portfolio Organisations (NPOs) and Investment Principles Support Organisations (IPSOs) funded through the 2023-26 Investment and Transfer Programmes over the course of the investment term.

NPOs, IPSOs and Transfer organisations should read their relevant Relationship Framework carefully, as they provide important information on the following: 

 

• Who your point of contact at the Arts Council will be  

• The role and responsibility of your board in relation to the public investment we are making  

• How you will report on activity and how we’ll monitor it, including though our risk monitoring framework  

• When, and how, we might make any interventions if an organisation is not delivering on their funding agreement 

Updates to the Relationship Framework

Last updated: 28 February 2024

We have published new versions of the Relationship Frameworks that include updated sections on reputational risk. These can be found on the following pages:

• NPOs: Page 16 to 19 
• IPSOs: Page 16 to 19
• Transfer - NPOs: Page 17 to 20
• Transfer - IPSOs: Page 16 to 19

Read the full list of updates made to the Relationship Framework since April 2023.

Download the Relationship Frameworks:

Download the Relationship Frameworks below, as PDFs or Large Print. We are working to publish BSL, Audio and Easy Read versions as soon as possible.

Relationship Framework for NPOs 

Relationship Framework for IPSOs 

Relationship Framework for Transfer NPOs

Relationship Framework for Transfer IPSOs 

Download the payment calendars to find out when you’ll receive your grant and which conditions you’ll need to meet for us to release your payment. The calendars are relevant to all National Portfolio, Investment Principles Support and Transfer Organisations. 

Each year, you’ll need to complete and submit:

• An activity plan
• Your finances
• How you’re working towards the Investment Principles

Below you can find a template to download and complete for each of those reports for the 2023/24 funding year. You can also access a guide which explains how to use each template.

We have now published templates for the 2024/25 funding year.

Activity plan

Finances

Investment Principles

Each year, you’ll need to complete and submit:

• An activity plan
• Your finances
• How you’re working towards the Investment Principles

The templates have been updated for the mandatory submissions in April 2024. The changes are minimal and include:

• Updated dates referring to the 2024/25 funding year
• Larger cells for text input
• A cash flow totals column in the Finance template

It is essential that your plans for 2024/25 are submitted on the correct template so we can use them for reporting purposes. If plans are submitted on the incorrect template your payment request will be amended back to you and you will be asked to resubmit, which will delay your payment being processed.

Updated guides will be available shortly.

Activity Plan - NPO

Activity Plan - IPSO

Finance template - NPO and IPSO

Investment Principles Plan - NPO and IPSO

Alongside the Relationship Framework, please also find a copy of our Standard Terms and Conditions below.

Last updated: September 2023

Data sharing agreements

If you are an NPO, your funding agreement requires you to enter into mutually agreed data-sharing agreements with any Arts Council funded organisations that you have partnered with during the term of your funding agreement.

This requirement is intended to ensure that:

• All of our funded organisations are working in partnership, to enable them to put their audience’s needs first and develop audiences for the arts across the sector;
• Audience members are given the opportunity to choose which organisations have access to their data;
• Our funded organisations are supported to act in the best interests of the audience, whilst collecting, storing and sharing data in compliance with data protection law.

GDPR and Data Sharing

NPOs must take steps to ensure they are GDPR compliant but there is nothing in the GDPR legislation that prohibits the sharing of personal data with other partners as long as

• It’s clear how the shared data will be used and for what purpose(s) through a GDPR compliant privacy notice, policy or statement;
• Where the chosen legal basis of the sharing is consent (as ACE requires), the customer has freely given his or her consent on a specific, informed and unambiguous basis for their personal data to be shared for this/these purpose(s) and can easily withdraw such consent at any time;
• If you are relying on consent to allow the partner to process an individual’s data for its own purposes (e.g. direct marketing), you should clearly identify the named partner and the purpose(s) for which they want to use that data (asking customers to agree to their data being shared with ‘selected 3^rd parties’ or category of partners is no longer sufficient);
• Shared data is not used for any purpose(s) other than those that are specified to the customer;
• Appropriate measures are taken to keep the data secure; and
• You should be able to demonstrate compliance with the above if asked.

Updated: January 2024

Monitoring and reporting

What do you mean by a ‘light touch’ monitoring relationship?

For 2023-26 we are changing the way we work with our National Portfolio and Investment Principles Support Organisations. We will take a lighter touch approach to monitoring our relationship with you and we expect boards or equivalent oversight groups to take a more central role in ensuring that our funding agreement is being delivered. By reducing the time we spend with you, we can focus more of our staff resource on development work with organisations and individuals we don’t already have a funding relationship with.

As a baseline, the monitoring relationship will consist of:

• submission of quarterly board papers (see further on expectations for board papers below)
• quarterly submission of audience and activity data
• an annual survey
• an annual progress meeting, usually in the first quarter of the year – so the first one will be April – June 2024
• seeing a representative sample of your organisation’s work. Relationship Managers will ensure that they see enough of your work to enable a productive annual review meeting

For organisations that we consider low risk, we will leave you to get on with things with support and oversight from your board. We expect that monitoring and contact will increase in response to increased risk.

Will levels of monitoring and reporting be different, depending on the size of organisation, or size of investment?

No. The monitoring framework is standard for all organisations in the portfolio. We expect that monitoring and contact will increase in relation to increased risk. Of course, we understand that the format and content of what you submit to us will vary dependent on the scale and type of your organisation.  

What do you expect from our board papers?

In the Relationship Frameworks and the funding agreement (schedule 1, condition 2.1) we set out our expectations for board papers, which are:

• an agenda for the board meeting
• minutes from the previous board meeting
• up-to-date financial information, including:
  • most recent management accounts, including the original budget set for the year, the budget and actuals for the period and to date, the resulting variances, and revised projections to the end of the year
  • a rolling 12-month cashflow forecast, including opening balances
  • final (annual) financial statements at the appropriate point and in line with statutory requirements 

• your updated risk register/s
• quarterly progress reports against the targets and success measures set out in your Arts Council funding agreement (annual agreed Activity and Investment Principles Plans) which, where applicable, should identify any areas of activity where insufficient progress is being made and include appropriate plans and actions that have been approved by your board to help mitigate risks and/or increase progress and performance. You will find it helpful, and we strongly encourage you to use the Arts Council Activity (Outcomes) and Investment Principles Plans templates for updates and reporting to your board

Will monitoring requirements for submission of final (annual) financial statements be altered for organisations whose financial years are not April-March?

Financial statements should be submitted as part of quarterly submission of board papers at the appropriate point in the annual cycle, in line with statutory requirements. These should be reviewed by your board or equivalent oversight group and form part of the board papers submitted with the next available payment request.  

For example, if your annual accounts are reviewed by your board or equivalent oversight group in the period July-September, we would expect these to form part of the board papers submitted for October payment release.

Does the Arts Council publish the aggregated data it gathers through the annual survey so that we can track our own performance in comparison to other organisations and over time?  

Yes, we do publish the data. You can find data from previous years and our timetable for publishing the data on our website.

We are asked to report to our boards on progress against our Arts Council funded activity. To what extent can we phase the introduction of these reporting requirements into our quarterly reporting cycle?

We understand that there will be an initial lag for some organisations reporting to their board on 2023-26 funded activity. For example, a board meeting held in April-June 2023 with papers submitted for July payment release would most likely have focussed on activity reporting from the final quarter of 2022/23.

We would expect all organisations to be providing progress updates against the agreed activity for the current funding agreement as part of board papers submitted from October 2023 and on a quarterly basis thereafter.

Do we still need to do the annual data survey as well as the submit board papers?

The annual data survey is a mandatory condition, with organisations required to submit activity and audience data quarterly through the Illuminate platform. Organisations are also required to submit board papers quarterly.

What are the submission dates for reporting?

Take a look at our payment calendars which outline payment conditions and data reporting requirements per quarter.

Please note that changes to 2023/24 audience data reporting requirements were communicated to all NPOs and IPSOs on 5 September 2023.

Events and Activity log:

• For September 2023 organisations were only required to have completed their registration on the Illuminate platform.
• Organisations were then required to submit Q1 and Q2 activity data to Illuminate by the end of December 2023. Organisations will still be required to have uploaded all 2023/24 activity data to Illuminate by the end of June 2024.

Audience surveys:

• We have removed the requirement for NPOs and IPSOs to complete surveys for the 2023/24 funding year
• Please note: the requirement to undertake surveys will be reintroduced from 1 April 2024.

Box office/Ticketing - only relevant to NPOs using a box office/ticketing system:

• We are working with our supplier to develop an API (Application Programming Interface) that will offer integration with a wider range of box office systems
• Before this is in place, we will not require you to input box office data to Illuminate 
• If you use a box office system that is compatible with the new API, we will require you to input your box office / ticketing data for the 2023/24 funding period into Illuminate by the end of July 2024

Further information on Illuminate is available here.

Is Arts Council accepting any reduction in activities for the 2024/25 funding year?

We recognise that the financial context in which organisations are operating has continued to change significantly. This means that, in order to remain viable, many organisations will need to reduce levels of activity compared to the first funding year. This may include a reduction to proposed additional activity, where an uplift has been awarded.  

  In order to ensure Activity Plans remain realistic and deliverable, we are able to accept an up-to 15% reduction to the delivery of activity compared to final agreed activity in 2023/24. In many instances this may mean a reduction of up to 15% in activity days in 2024/25, compared to activity days in 2023-4. This reduction could be across one or more of the current proposed activities, or through removal of whole activities, or delivery against specified Outcomes (for NPOs) or Investment Principles (for IPSOs), from your 2024/25 Activity Plan. We’d expect any activity deferred from 2023/24 to be delivered during 2024/25. 

If you are proposing a reduction in activity when submitting your 2024/25 Activity Plan, please use the text box on the declaration page of your April payment request to tell us what percentage reduction you are proposing compared to agreed activity levels for 2023/24 and why. Your Relationship Manager will be able to agree an up-to 15% reduction in activity. If you wish to propose more than 15%, this will be subject to review by the Area Management Team and may not in all cases be agreed.

We remain committed to widening opportunities for people to access creativity and culture in villages, towns and cities across the country and are therefore keen to protect activities that contribute to delivery in Levelling Up for Culture Places or Priority Places, work for children and young people and touring activity.

We expect the majority of organisations to be able to produce viable activity plans for 2024/25 within this 15% tolerance, however some organisations may not be in a position to achieve this. Where submitted plans fall outside of the 15% tolerance for reduced activity, this will be reflected in your risk monitoring, and we may ask you to make changes and resubmit your Activity Plan.

How does the Arts Council measure a 15% reduction in activities?

This will depend on the individual circumstances of your organisation. It may be easier to work this 15% reduction out for some organisations than others, for instance where activity is directly broken down into days of the same activity it would be relatively clear. In other cases it will be necessary to exercise judgement on what would constitute a 15% reduction in activities and will require further review by the Arts Council.

We’re expecting the reduction to be in activities identified in your activity plan but note that these changes may impact on budgets.

All organisations are required to maintain a commitment to embedding our four Investment Principles in their work and we expect to see appropriate targets included in the updated Investment Principles Plan.

Reporting tools

There are only payment conditions relating to audience data reporting requirements twice a year. How will quarterly audience data reporting compliance be monitored when a payment request does not include a data reporting payment condition?

The Arts Council will be monitoring audience data reporting submissions centrally using Illuminate on a quarterly basis. This is linked to payment conditions twice a year.

If you have not complied with the audience data reporting requirements, this will be reflected in your risk monitoring regardless of whether there is a payment condition relating to data reporting.

As communicated on 5 September 2023, you are required to have uploaded all 2023/24 Audience activity data to Illuminate by the end of June 2024. If you have not uploaded all required audience activity data by this deadline, further action will be taken when your July 2024 payment request is reviewed. See the Relationship Framework for more information.

Can you clarify which data reporting tools are mandatory?

The only mandatory data reporting tool for the 2023-26 funding period is Illuminate. You will also be required to submit an annual data survey.

We’ve also made free environmental reporting and evaluation tools available to you, but you can use alternatives if you’d prefer to do so. If your organisation does intend to use alternative tools, you should make sure that they are high quality and appropriate, and details should be provided in your annual Investment Principles Plan.

How can I find out more about Illuminate?

Illuminate is the new audience data platform for creative and cultural organisations. It will enable you to gather audience data through surveys and box office connections, and access meaningful insights about who engages with your activities. Find out more >.

The dedicated Illuminate Help Desk is ready to support any queries you may have about using Illuminate. The helpdesk is open 9am - 5pm on weekdays (excluding bank holidays) and you can contact them by email or telephone on 0800 031 8671.

For audience reporting, should we only use Illuminate, or should we use the Impact and Insight Toolkit too?

Illuminate is the mandatory audience data reporting platform and will provide meaningful insights about who engages with your activities.

The Impact & Insight Toolkit supports data-led, quality evaluation. This tool captures data and provides users with insights into what audiences, participants, peers and creative practitioners think about the work they produce.

Whilst it is not mandatory for NPOs to use this platform, we do expect organisations to identify the toolkits and resources you will use to set, monitor, and achieve the targets as set out in the Ambition & Quality section of your Investment Principles Plan, and consider how you will report on progress to your board or oversight group.

The Impact & Insight Toolkit is free for National Portfolio Organisations and Investment Principles Support Organisations to use, and provides access to resources, training and developmental support to enable organisations to explore and develop their quality evaluation processes through the framework.

There are only payment conditions relating to activity and audience data reporting requirements twice a year. How will quarterly activity and audience data reporting compliance be monitored when a payment request does not include a data reporting payment condition?

The Arts Council will be monitoring activity and audience data reporting submissions centrally using Illuminate on a quarterly basis. This is linked to payment conditions twice a year.

If you have not complied with the activity and audience data reporting requirements, this will be reflected in your risk monitoring regardless of whether there is a payment condition relating to data reporting.

As communicated on 5 September 2023, you are required to have uploaded all 2023/24 audience activity data to Illuminate by the end of June 2024. If you have not uploaded all required audience and activity data by this deadline, further action will be taken when your July 2024 payment request is reviewed. See the Relationship Framework for more information.

What are the requirements for environmental data reporting?

Reporting environmental data is an important foundation for understanding your impact and reducing your footprint. Your Investment Principles Plan should set out the policies and plans that will underpin your organisation’s work to embed the Investment Principles, including Environmental Responsibility. The plan should also outline the toolkits and resources you will use to set, monitor, and achieve targets and how you will report on progress to your board or oversight group.

While not mandatory, our environmental partner, Julie’s Bicycle, offers the Creative Climate Tools. These are a free-to-access carbon calculator that allow you to calculate your carbon footprint for your organisation or projects. Specifically developed for the cultural sector - venues, offices, tours, productions, events and festivals are all covered. We would encourage you to sign up and use Creative Climate Tools. You can find further information on our website Find out more >.

Templates

Are the templates compulsory to use or provided as optional support?

The updated mandatory templates for April 2024 are now available here.

Submission of completed mandatory templates (Activity and Investment Principles Plans and financial template) is a condition of each April payment, to agree activity plans and budgets for the relevant funding year. This allows us to produce a consistent data set of what activity is being delivered across the portfolio on an annual basis.  

We strongly encourage organisations to use the Activity and Investment Principles Plan templates for updates and reporting to boards or oversight groups on relevant activity throughout the funding period. In response to your feedback, we are providing unlocked versions of the templates to improve usability for this purpose. The unlocked templates for the 2023/24 funding year are available to download from our website.

Will you provide ‘unlocked’ versions of the templates?

Yes. Unlocked versions of the templates for the 2023/24 are now available to download from our website.

Unlocked versions of the templates for the 2024/25 reporting year will be made available soon after the April 2024 payment submissions.

Strategy and other funding

Will there be discipline or artform strategies from the Arts Council, to support and align our work?

At the Arts Council we have a single strategy for 2020-2030, Let’s Create, which, shapes all our investment and development decisions. We will not therefore develop separate discipline or sub-discipline strategies.

We do, however, from time to time commission specific pieces of research and analysis to help us think about the implications of our strategy for specific artforms and disciplines. As an example of this, we recently commissioned an independent analysis of the opera and music theatre sector in England. This analysis will complement our strategy and help us shape our future investment and policy in those sectors, as well as supporting development of a shared understanding with the sector of the challenges and opportunities currently faced by it.

Will you be able to support/endorse funding bids to other public sector funders?

No. While we cannot directly support funding bids to other funders, the revenue funding you receive through the 2023-26 Investment or Transfer Programme can be used to contribute towards building fundraising capacity and expertise within your organisation.

Organisations should seek independent advice, where required.

Can NPOs apply for Project Grants in this funding period?

Generally, NPOs, IPSOs and Transfer organisations are not eligible to apply for National Lottery Project Grants; however, there are exemptions for Nationally Significant Projects, Touring and Place Partnerships strands..

The restrictions below will apply from 1 April 2023-31 March 2026. We don’t count any Expressions of Interest (EOI) or full applications you made before 1 April 2023.

NPOs/IPSOs/Transfer organisations:

• Can apply to Nationally Significant Projects, Touring and Place Partnerships
• Can make a maximum of 2 full applications (successful or unsuccessful) within the period 1 April 2023-31 March 2026, across any combination of these strands
• Expressions of Interest (EOIs) to any strand can only be resubmitted once, revised after feedback, before a full application is made
• If unsuccessful at full application you can’t resubmit an EOI for the same project
• We decide which period (2022-23 or 2023-26) your application falls into based on when you submit your EOI Any project an NPO, IPSO or Transfer organisation applies for must be clearly additional to their funded programme

Further information is available in the Funded Organisations and Project Grants information sheet.

Will there be additional strategic funding opportunities for NPOs and IPSOs being released over the funding period?

No. Whilst some NPOs and IPSOs may be eligible to apply for funds for specific purposes from existing programmes, for example, the Capital Investment Programme, there are no planned additional strategic funds aimed specifically at NPOs and IPSOs during the current funded period.

We are not able to intervene to provide additional funding to support an organisation’s liquidity. We will, however, consider requests from organisations to use their grant differently for a set period of time, including reprofiling how the award is paid within and across years. For organisations in financial and other difficulty, this may enable them to review or stabilise their business. To support these requests, we will ask you to provide relevant cash flow forecasts as a minimum.

Governance support

What is the Transforming Governance programme?

Transforming Governance is an offer of support from us to you, on all things governance. It isn’t a funding programme but offers practical advice and support through provision of free resources, toolkits, online workshops, peer-to-peer networks, and specialist advice.

This programme will support chairs, trustees and executive leadership to:

• understand their roles and responsibilities, including in relation to Arts Council funding
• better manage and monitor organisational risk
• diversify governance through inclusive recruitment, change and succession planning
• embed the four Investment Principles.

Further information is available here.

How does the focus on board oversight and reporting reconcile with the desire to increase diversity of boards?

While we acknowledge the challenges of attracting new board members, particularly from diverse communities, we are not expecting board members to get involved in the day to day running of an organisation. It is about oversight, and our expectation that boards receive updates on the activities and finances of the organisation is what we would consider to be standard practice.

Working with IPSOs and the Arts Council

Who are the Investment Principles Support Organisations (IPSOs), and how can they help NPOs?

The IPSOs are a group of 40 organisations who help NPOs (and other organisations and individuals across the rest of the sector) to embed our Investment Principles in their work and use their expertise and experience to support others to adopt them.

There is a database of IPSOs on our Investment Principles Resource Hub, where you can browse by theme and the types of support they offer. Find out more >

The Investment Principles Resource Hub also provides a wealth of information about our Investment Principles and how you can embed them into your organisation and activity. It is regularly updated with new content, such as essential reads, case studies, toolkits, videos, podcasts and more.

We’ve been told that we will have less time to work with Relationship Managers. We want to hear from them more – can we?

Our lighter touch approach to the monitoring relationship means that you may not see as much of your Relationship Manager as you’re used to if you were in the 2022/23 national portfolio. This is so that we can focus more of our staff resource on development work with organisations and individuals we don’t already have a funding relationship with.

We expect to have increased contact with organisations that are new to the portfolio during the first year to help you familiarise yourselves with our processes and expectations.

For NPOs and IPSOs that we consider low risk, Relationship Managers will not generally attend board meetings or have progress meetings or phone calls during the year, however we would expect that monitoring and contact would increase in response to increased risk.