Developing your Creative Practice: FAQS

We ask all individual applicants to provide their date of birth to help reduce the possibility of fraud and ensure we are only providing funding to genuine creative or cultural practitioners in need of our funding.

Your date of birth will not be used in any decision-making processes or for any other purpose. For further information about how we process your data, please refer to our General privacy notice.

We received over 13,000 applications in Rounds 8-11 of DYCP. This is over three times what we would usually expect across four rounds. We continue to receive a very high volume of applications each round. To help improve the chances of success, we made some changes to the eligibility criteria which will remain in place for future rounds. 

Find out more about the restrictions >

You cannot apply to both programmes at the same time. If you apply to one, you will need to wait until you have received a decision from us before you will be eligible to apply to another programme. 

When you decide which programme you want to apply to, the main things to think about are: 

• will your activity include opportunities for people to engage, become involved with or experience your work; or

• is your activity mainly focused on developing your own practice? 

In the attachment section we ask for:

• one document to demonstrate your work (either as a web link or an attachment)
• one supporting document (an attachment)

We need to see an example of your work. This can be either an attachment or a link. If you share a link that’s password protected please tell us the password in your application. Please don’t use a link to a site that requires membership to view (such as LinkedIn) as we won’t be able to access it.

We also need one supporting document, written by someone other than you, that supports the quality of your practice. This can be a review, external views of your work or a letter of support from an organisation or partner you have worked with.

Think carefully about the attachments/link that you give us. Your attachments/link should add value to your application. Think about how to demonstrate the quality of your work and show that you’re ready to take a step up in your practice.

There are two steps to the application process. The eligibility questionnaire and the application form.

The application form appears on a separate line in the submission area after hitting the submit button at the end of the eligibility questionnaire.

You will find your application form beneath the eligibility questionnaire in the Submissions menu.

Duplicate eligibility questionnaires or applications not submitted won’t having any impact on funding decisions, we only look at the submitted application form. Duplicates fall off the system after six months.

If you are unable to see your applications, then there may be some filters hiding them. These can be cleared using the [Clear Filters] button located at the top left of the page.

Our step-by-step video can help you through this if you’re having trouble.

We can support creative and cultural practitioners doing work related to our supported artforms and disciplines. Our supported artforms and disciplines are Music, Theatre, Dance, Visual arts, Literature, Libraries, Combined arts and Museums practice.

Some examples of things you can apply for are:

• building new networks for future development/presentation of work
• creating new work
• experimenting with new collaborators or partners
• international travel to explore other practice or work with mentors
• professional development activities
• research and development time to explore practice and take risks
• practical steps to support your work to be more sustainable in future

Read the guidance to see if your activity is eligible. If you are unsure of whether the activity you are applying for is eligible, you can contact us.

Craft projects that we can support typically fall under Visual arts. A textile/jewellery/ceramic project centred around Visual art, rather than purely functional form could be considered.

For example, we would be unlikely to fund the design/creation of clothing however, we can consider applications for textile art suitable for exhibition.

We encourage you to pay yourself a fee for the time you spend working on the project. This can’t be in the form of an ongoing wage, but as a time-specific fee. You should estimate the time you will spend on the project in days or hours and show your overall amount as a total of your hourly/daily fee x number of hours/days.

We are committed to making sure those who work in arts and culture are properly and fairly paid. Whether for yourself or for partners/collaborators, we expect you to show how fees for artists, creatives and specialists for projects funded by us are in line with, or better than, recognised codes of practice and guidelines set by the relevant lead bodies.

You can find out more information on recommended rates of pay in our Fair Pay information sheet.

You can apply for training or courses, but remember that we cannot fund the costs (directly or indirectly) of statutory education, further education or higher education (undergraduate or postgraduate) for:

• activities directly linked to formal courses of study
• activities which contribute towards course assessment, tuition fees or living costs. 

We would only expect to fund residencies if the experience is tailored to your development, and not off the shelf residencies. 

We ask successful applicants to let us know of any changes to their planned activity or project dates should any restrictions affect your project.

If you need to change your activity after you have been successful, please contact us. 

Providing the software/equipment or other asset purchase is directly related to your creative development, you can include the cost within your application. 

Please bear in mind that buying assets is not the main purpose of the programme. We’re more interested in supporting extended periods of development which give you the time to really explore and work in new ways, but we understand that you may need to make some purchases to be able to carry out your development. 

If you need to buy any materials, equipment, or instruments, you should include the costs in the budget section of the application and tell us about them in the description field. You should get competitive quotes from more than one business or supplier. As part of our eligibility checks we will decide if any proposed asset purchases are appropriate. You may be asked to send invoices for any purchases.

We cannot use our funding to support activities, goods or services that have already taken place or been purchased/ordered before we have made a decision on your application.

All activity in your project timeline will need to correspond with your proposed project start date and end date. The earliest start date you will be able to enter on your application is the date we aim to release decisions for this round. 

Please also bear in mind when planning your expenditure that a first payment usually takes around 15-20 working days from when you accept your offer online.

You will need to complete the monitoring information section of the application form every time you make an application to us. This is so the information you provide is accurate and up-to-date.

When you first set up your applicant profile you will need to complete the monitoring information page. In late 2018, we updated how we collect information relating to diversity for our applicants including some changes to the Monitoring Information page in all applicant profiles.

If you have not made an application to us since then, you will need to go into your applicant profile and update the monitoring information. You will not be able to submit a new application until you update this information. It is best to do this before you start the Eligibility Questionnaire.

To update your applicant profile:

• Log in to your profile
• In the left-hand menu, click on Applicants
• Use the drop-down menu to select the applicant profile you wish to update
• Click on the orange folder icon next to ‘Open’ to open the profile
• In the left-hand menu, click on Submission summary. At the bottom of this screen, click Edit
• In the left-hand menu, click on Monitoring information. You will need to respond to all the questions on this page
• Once complete, click Save and Next at the bottom of the screen
• On the Declaration screen, check you are happy with all the information, and click Save and Next at the bottom of the screen
• Click Complete at the bottom of the Submission summary screen

You may also wish to check and update any information in the rest of your applicant profile.

If you have any issues completing any of these steps, contact our Customer Services team.

Post event assurance is an activity undertaken after completion of a funding scheme, or towards the end of it. It consists of a number of checks against a sample of grant recipients to provide assurance that Arts Council funding has been issued correctly, and/ or funding has been spent appropriately in line with grant Ts & Cs and eligibility criteria. It’s an extremely important step in doing our part to protect public funds and detect potentially fraudulent activity.

Which Terms & Conditions does PEA relate to?

Upon accepting Arts Council funding, applicants agree to our grant terms and conditions which allow Arts Council to make requests for information relating to the applicant, and use of the grant. The terms and conditions specific to PEA are: 

• You must ensure that all records, including financial records, relating to the Project are accurate and up to date. You must keep these records for seven years after the Project has finished.
• You must give us, or any person nominated by us, access to all records relating to the Project or other projects funded by us upon demand, including (but not limited to) accounts and any other financial records, VAT and any other tax records. We can ask for access to these records for up to seven years after the Project has finished.
• You must send us any information and records that we reasonably require to monitor your Project and how the grant is being used.

See the full grant terms and conditions.

What does it mean for me?

If you/ your organisation is selected to provide additional information for PEA purposes, you will receive an email detailing exactly what we need from you. This email will always come from pea@artscouncil.org.uk.

What do I have to do if my grant is selected?

As PEA can differ from scheme to scheme, there is no “one size fits all” approach. The email we send to you will detail what you need to do and what (if anything) we need from you. 

How long do I have to provide the information requested?

A timeframe will be detailed in your email. If you don’t think you can meet the deadline, please let us know by responding to the email. 

I’ve been asked for evidence of my grant expenditure, what do you need exactly?

This means we need to see invoices, bank statements and/or agreements/ funding commitments of 100% of your grant expenditure to fulfil this request. Your expenditure should be detailed on an expenditure table which can be found in the email we’ve sent you, and should correspond with what you’ve reported, or plan on reporting in your Final Activity Report. If you are unsure what you need to provide, please contact us.

I’ve been asked for evidence of my grant expenditure, but I don’t have any evidence, what do I do?

As per the Arts Council grant terms and conditions, all successful grant applicants are required to retain all evidence related to their grant for seven years after the grant has been closed. Failure to provide the requested information would be a breach of terms and conditions and we could withdraw your grant if we can not be assured that the funding has been spent appropriately.

What happens if I don’t respond?

If you are struggling to meet your deadline, please contact us. If you fail to respond to a PEA request for information, this would be a breach of Arts Council terms and conditions and we may withhold future payments and/or withdraw your grant and request funds back from you. This isn’t a decision we take lightly - we realise how important Arts Council funding is to individuals and organisations across the industry, so it’s really important that you contact us if you cannot provide the requested information or cannot meet the deadline. 

DYCP supports individual applicants to develop their creative and cultural practice. The activity you’re applying for must benefit you as an individual practitioner. We ask you to confirm this on Grantium when you apply.

It might be that you own a business, company or organisation that relates to your practice. In this case your application must be for activity which develops you as an individual practitioner and not activity which directly develops your business.

Our Guidance for applicants explains the types of activity that we can support.

 

It’s been introduced because of new laws which effect giving out grants. We’re asking this additional question to make sure that the application process for DYCP remains as simple and clear as possible.

Yes, you can. 

You’ll need to apply in your capacity as an individual and your application must be for your development as an individual practitioner and not the immediate benefit of your business, company or organisation.

You also need to have an individual bank account, we cannot accept a business bank account.

 

If we offer you a grant you will need an individual bank account in the exact name that you apply in. 

If you don’t have an individual bank account by the time we make a decision, if we offer you funding, there will be a delay to you receiving your grant.