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Sacha Lord resigned as as night time economy advisor to Greater Manchester Metro Mayor Andy Burnham ahead of an announcement by Arts Council England that it was revoking a Culture Recovery Grant to a company he co- founded
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Arts Council England responds to Sacha Lord claims over Covid grant investigation findings
Arts Council England has said its investigation did not determine whether or not misleading information was supplied deliberately.
An Arts Council England investigation into a now revoked Covid-era grant did not determine whether misleading information had or had not been supplied, apparently contradicting suggestions made by the recipient company’s co-founder Sacha Lord, Arts Professional has learned.
On Tuesday, Lord resigned from his role as night-time economy advisor to Greater Manchester Metro Mayor Andy Burnham following a decision by ACE to withdraw a previously awarded £401,928 Culture Recovery Fund (CRF) grant made to his now-liquidated company, Primary Event Solutions.
Lord said that while he accepted that the grant’s status has been “updated”, he appreciated that ACE “found that there is no finding” against Primary Event Solutions of deliberate misleading in its grant application.
‘Mistake or trying to mislead’
However, ACE has clarified that its investigation did not determine whether or not deliberate deception occurred.
ACE said that its review of Primary Event Solution’s application found it breached a clause from the grant’s terms and conditions in relation to information supplied being “wrong or misleading, either by mistake or because you were trying to mislead us”.
The funding body noted that the clause does not require it to come to a conclusion on whether inaccurate information was supplied intentionally or not.
Following the publication of Lord’s statement, ACE told Arts Professional: “We are not required by this clause to determine whether the misleading information was supplied deliberately.
“However, we have found that the applicant, Primary Event Solutions, breached this condition, whether by mistake or otherwise, leading us to withdraw the grant.”
In response to enquiries about the claims in Lord’s statement on this point, a spokesperson for the former mayoral advisor reiterated that “Arts Council England did not conclude that the company deliberately misled the Arts Council in this application”.
Prior investigation
Lord’s statement also raised concerns over what he refers to as “inconsistencies and a lack of proportionality” in ACE’s handling of the matter.
Criticising “the length of time taken to bring the matter to a close”, Lord said that the application had been “reviewed twice previously” by ACE’s counter fraud team, which concluded “on both occasions” that it was compliant with grant guidance.
ACE said prior to the most recent investigation, which began in May 2024, following reports in The Mill that questioned the extent to which Primary Event Solutions operated in the culture sector, its counter fraud team only undertook one review of the grant’s expenditure, which concluded in December 2022.
“In July 2022, following an allegation of fraud relating to this application, our counter fraud team reviewed the expenditure and found no misuse of the grant,” said ACE.
“This was the only time our counter fraud team reviewed this grant until the checks we have been conducting since May 2024, based on new information brought to us regarding the original application, which has led to the grant’s withdrawal.”
A spokesperson for Lord, who previously called the claims in The Mill “defamatory and factually incorrect”, maintained that there had been more than one investigation.
However, they added: “It is worth noting that Arts Council do not share fraud allegations with grant recipients and thus we only can discuss where post event assurance (counter fraud) teams have asked for information and then confirmed a satisfactory outcome.”
To date, across the whole CRF programme, Arts Council England has received 357 third-party objections and 88 allegations of fraud. There has been one confirmed fraud and 2 cases that continue to be investigated.
ACE said that the Primary Event Solutions case is no longer being investigated, and it is not included in the figures as confirmed fraud.
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