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Support for successful applicants

Accepting the grant

If your application is funded, you will receive an email notification and asked to log on to our online system to view your decision letter. This will give you details of what to do next.

We will ask you to acknowledge your offer letter and accept our terms and conditions via the online system using the ‘Acknowledge offer letter’ submission.

Everyone who receives a grant must accept our standard terms and conditions. We attach these terms and conditions to any offer.

The bank details form is attached to your offer. You must complete and upload it following the guidance in the bank details form. 

We may list some additional information you must provide to us before we will release your first payment (we call these ‘payment conditions’). For example, we might ask for a confirmed tour schedule or confirmation that other income for the activity is in place.

Please use the project reference in your decision letter if you need to communicate with us.

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Terms and conditions

Everyone who receives a grant must accept our standard terms and conditions. These will be attached to your offer letter. You can also find them below.

They set out the legal relationship between the Arts Council and those who receive our grant funding.

They explain that you must use the grant exclusively for the activity described in your application form.

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Bank details guidance and form

The bank details guidance and form is attached to your offer letter on Grantium. You can also find a copy below.

Follow the instructions to complete and upload the form. In our online system this step is called ‘Submit Bank Details’.

The Submit bank details step will only appear for you on Grantium once we have reviewed your offer letter acknowledgement. We aim to do this as quickly as possible.

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Payment conditions

In your offer letter we may list some additional information that we need before we can release a payment. We call these ‘payment conditions’.

This payment conditions information sheet includes the most common payment conditions, why your grant might have a payment condition and what we would expect to receive from you to meet the condition.

Requesting a payment

For each payment of your grant, there will be a submission called ‘Payment request’ in the Submissions area of the online system. You must complete and submit a payment request before we can release each payment. This submission also allows you to upload any information needed to meet the payment conditions we’ve set.

Read the guidance for step-by-step instructions on accepting a grant and requesting a payment by clicking here

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Acknowledging our funding

National Lottery funding

Project Grants support wouldn’t be possible without National Lottery funding. There are things that you can do to promote National Lottery funding so it can continue to make good things possible. They are:

  • Acting as an advocate for public investment in creativity and culture from Arts Council England.
  • Ensuring that the investment made by Arts Council England is regularly communicated publicly, for example through social media, articles and speeches.
  • The appropriate logos and templates should be used on your external materials. Further information can be found here.

Our Standard terms and conditions set out our expectations for marketing, communications and funding acknowledgement. 

Other sources of Project Grants funding

Sometimes we make Project Grants awards using funding from other sources. For example, funding directly from the Government.

If this is the case for your award, your offer letter will tell you the source of your funding. You might be required to use a different logo and acknowledge that source of funding specifically in your external materials and communications.

Supporting Grassroots Music

You may have selected Supporting Grassroots Music when you applied and your offer letter may confirm that your activity is being funded from sources other than the National Lottery.

If this is the case you’ll need to use our grant award logo for work funded by money from central government (Grant-in-Aid). Using the right logo to acknowledge your grant is a condition of your funding.

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Interim reporting

Everyone who receives a grant from us for £30,001 or over needs to complete an interim report form. This is so we know how your project is going and how you’ve spent your grant so far.

You will need to complete the interim report form and accompanying payment request before we can release your next payment.

Depending on when you applied to us, you can see the interim report form questions below.

Although you might want to use these documents to draft your answers, we cannot accept offline versions of the report form. You will need to complete and submit the form on Grantium. Your interim report form will normally be available to you on Grantium one month before your interim payment date. If you have trouble accessing it or would like to access it before this date, you can contact us.

If you applied before 31 October 2023

Interim report form questions - offline version – coming soon

If you applied from 1 November 2023 onwards

Interim report form questions – offline version – coming soon

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Final reporting

Everyone who receives a grant from us needs to complete a final activity report form. This is so we know how your project went and how you spent your grant.

This is also a chance for you to reflect on your project, what worked well and what could be done differently next time.

Our grant terms and conditions explain that you must only use the grant for the activity described in your application form. We can’t allow you to keep any of our funding that is unrelated to this.

We’d recommend you read our Final reporting information sheet before filling in your final activity report form.

Depending on when you applied to us, you can see the final activity report form questions below.

Although you might want to use these documents to draft your answers, we cannot accept offline versions of the report form. You will need to complete and submit the form on Grantium. Your final report form will normally be available to you on Grantium one month before your final payment date. If you have trouble accessing it or would like to access it before this date, you can contact us.

If you applied before 31 October 2023

Final activity report form questions - offline version – coming soon

If you applied from 1 November 2023 onwards

Final activity report form questions – offline version – coming soon

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Post event assurance

What is Post event assurance (PEA)?

Post event assurance takes place towards the end of a grant, or after grant reporting is complete. It consists of checks against a sample of grant recipients to provide assurance that Arts Council funding has been awarded correctly, and that the funding has been spent appropriately in line with terms and conditions and eligibility criteria. It’s an extremely important step to make sure we protect public funds.

Which terms & conditions does PEA relate to?

When you accept Arts Council funding, you agree to our grant terms and conditions. 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.

What does it mean for me?

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

How long do I have to provide the information requested?

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

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

This means we need to see invoices, bank statements and/or agreements/funding commitments covering all of your grant expenditure. Your expenditure should be detailed on an expenditure table which can be found in the email we’ve sent you. This will correspond with what you’ve reported to us, or plan on reporting in your final activity report form.

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?

Arts Council terms and conditions require all funded applicants to retain all evidence relating to their grant for seven years after the grant has been closed. We could withdraw your grant if we cannot be assured that the funding has been spent appropriately. However, this isn’t a decision we take lightly - we realise how important Arts Council funding is to individuals and organisations, so it’s important that you contact us if you’re unable to provide the requested information.

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 or withdraw your grant and request funds back from you.

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Photo by Gravity & Levity: Vertical Dance Masterclass, ACCA July 2018
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