CPP: Key Documents and Guidance

The requirements for the Financial Year 2024/25 are detailed below. If you have any questions, please direct them to your Relationship Manager. 

Data about your programme 

Collection Method: CPP Annual Data Survey 

Creative People and Places Programmes will now need to complete an annual data survey, which will collect annual information about your workforce, volunteers, partnerships and wider questions about your programme.  This will be submitted as part of your May payment condition in 2025, via a Qualtrics link, sent to you by our Data Team in April 2025. The survey will cover information for the financial year 2024/25. 

The questions you will be asked on your annual survey and guidance around them are available here and below. 

Data about your audiences/participants and activity

Collection Method: Illuminate Platform 

Arts Council England’s new data platform Illuminate will be used to collect the information about your activity and audience data, which we normally collect through your quarterly data link.  All of your activity should be added to the Illuminate platform.  You can then use the survey function to create surveys which contain the mandatory questions for audiences (these can then be emailed out or collected in person online or via paper copies and uploaded into Illuminate later)

Further information about Illuminate, including the mandatory questions for audiences and participants is here. 

Postcode Data from your audiences

We are also asking Creative People and Places Programmes to continue to collect full postcodes from their audiences throughout the year. You should do this via Illuminate surveying and using alternative collection methods. You will be asked to submit data as part of your May payment condition in 2025. 

Quality Evaluation activity 

Collection Method: Impact and Insight Toolkit 

You will be required to complete 4 evaluations through the Impact and Insight Toolkit, per year.  Impact and Insight Toolkit Guidance available below.

Case Studies, Learning and Best Practice 

Collection Method: Quarterly and Annual Narrative Forms 

We will still be collecting narratives around your activity and learning via Quarterly Narrative Forms, and via an enhanced Annual Form.   

Quarterly templates will still be submitted on Grantium, using the word document. 

Annual Narrative forms will be collected using a Microsoft form, a link to this will be sent to you with the link to complete your annual data return. You will then be able to print a pdf when it is complete to submit onto Grantium as evidence of completion.   We recommend you prepare your answers off-line and then copy and paste into the form when you are ready.

For the Financial Year 2023/24, we are making a number of changes to the way we collect data from our Creative People and Places programmes, to bring the programme in line with the National Portfolio. The requirements are detailed below. If you have any queries about any of the below, please direct them to your Relationship Manager.

Data about your programme 

Collection Method: CPP Annual Data Survey 

Creative People and Places Programmes will now need to complete an annual data survey, which will collect annual information about your workforce, volunteers, partnerships and wider questions about your programme.  This will be submitted as part of your May payment condition in 2024, via a Qualtrics link, sent to you by our Data Team in April 2024. The survey will cover information for the financial year 2023/24. 

The questions you will be asked on your annual survey and guidance around them are available here and below. 

• Due to bank holidays and weekends the Annual Survey portal will open at midday on TUESDAY 2 APRIL and remain open until midday on FRIDAY 31 MAY. Guidance and supporting documents for the annual survey can be found and downloaded here.
• Your bespoke link to the Qualtrics platform will be sent on the morning of 2 April to the primary contact for your organisation, taken from your Grantium account.

Data about your audiences/participants and activity

Collection Method: Illuminate Platform 

Arts Council England’s new data platform Illuminate will be used to collect the information about your activity and audience data, which we normally collect through your quarterly data link.  All of your activity should be added to the Illuminate platform.  You can then use the survey function to create surveys which contain the mandatory questions for audiences (these can then be emailed out or collected in person online or via paper copies and uploaded into Illuminate later)

Further information about Illuminate, including the mandatory questions for audiences and participants is here. 

Please note for the financial year 23/24 we will also send you a data link (sent to you by our data team) – this is because we want to give you time to transition over to the new system. You will only need to complete the data link if you have not been able to submit your activities or complete audience surveys on Illuminate. Creative People and Places Programmes will be able to use the ‘Bulk Upload’ option that will be made available to all organisations at the end of October.

Postcode Data from your audiences

We are also asking Creative People and Places Programmes to continue to collect full postcodes from their audiences throughout the year. You will need to submit this data to Audience Agency, using the CPP Postcode Profiling Data Collection Template below, as part of your May payment condition in 2024. 

Download the guidance > 

Download the template > 

Your 2023/24 funded activity data (with audience/participant numbers) must be entered into Illuminate and you have until midday on FRIDAY 31^st MAY to complete the Confirmation step in the platform. Guidance is available in the Training section of Illuminate itself, further information on Illuminate is available here.

Quality Evaluation activity 

Collection Method: Impact and Insight Toolkit 

You will still be required to complete 4 evaluations through the Impact and Insight Toolkit, per year.  There have been some changes made to the user agreements for Impact and Insight Toolkit.  Guidelines for this are available to view below.

Even if you have been using Impact and Insight Toolkit previously, you will need to re-register to use the tool by 31st July 2023. You can do this by completing this EOI form. 

Case Studies, Learning and Best Practice 

Collection Method: Quarterly and Annual Narrative Forms 

We will still be collecting narratives around your activity and learning via Quarterly Narrative Forms, and via an enhanced Annual Form. You can complete the Annual Narrative Form for FY 23/24 here.

You will then be able to print a pdf when it is complete to submit onto Grantium as evidence of completion.   We recommend you prepare your answers off-line and then copy and paste into the form when you are ready, a copy of the questions is available below.

Quarterly templates will still be submitted on Grantium, using the word document. Available below.

Here are some helpful links and resources which will be useful to refer to throughout your project including;

• Business Planning Checklist  
• Local Evaluation Guidelines  

Creative People and Places is an Action Learning Programme, which means both the Arts Council and Creative People and Places projects regularly share learnings from the programme. Take a look >  

Here you can download logos to use across your digital/print content.