Grantium: ACE pledges detail on improvements by spring

Arts Council England has promised changes to the user experience of its much-maligned funding portal Grantium, which it says will be announced in spring.

The funding body did not specify what changes will be made but said they will be communicated to users prior to implementation, along with timings and detailed guidance.

A spokesperson confirmed to Arts Professional that ACE is “carrying out development work” noting that it also undertakes an average of two upgrades each year to improve performance, security and processing efficiency.

Previous improvement plans shelved

First launched in January 2016 at a cost of £930,000, Grantium was originally developed due to cost-saving requirements imposed by government. Since then it has come in for sustained criticism from users for being counterintuitive, using incomprehensible language and having confusing design.

Previous plans to improve the system were shelved due to Covid. In May 2022, during the run-up to the deadline for its 2023-26 investment programme, ACE told Arts Professional it was testing new versions of the system and hoped to be able to confirm a launch date “in the near future.”

Since then, Grantium has continued to attract the ire of those in the arts sector, with a steady stream of users venting their frustrations with the portal on social media.

‘Should be on display at the National Museum of Computing’

Last week, Critical Moment Theatre shared a photo of its Grantium “swear jar” on BlueSky, captioning it: “ It’s Arts Council England application time again!

“For those who have never seen it, Grantium is their online portal, designed by Franz Kafka.”

Recently, documentary photographer Marc Davenant shared a screenshot of the funding portal, describing it as “like stepping through a time portal and using a computer from 30 years ago”.

“It should be on display at the National Museum of Computing,“ he said.

He added some advice for other users: “If you are going to use it, then make sure you write the entries somewhere else and paste them into Grantium as one thing is guaranteed: when you click that save button, the system will fall over and lose the entire page. Happened to me about 12 times today. “

Users’ worries about losing their work continue to be a theme of criticism. In October, actor Kieran Barker wrote on X, “I made great progress on rewriting my ACE application… and then Grantium lost all my work.”

Meanwhile, others have vented about its character counting mechanism, with theatre producer Joe Steele posting on X in August, “People think a career in the arts is all about being creative and expressing yourself, but it’s actually about deciding whether your sentence will still make sense without the word ‘the’ on Grantium.”

An ACE spokesperson said, “We appreciate the effort applicants make in applying for public funding from the Arts Council and remain committed to listening to the feedback and experiences of users to improve our application processes.

“We are carrying out development work on Grantium and will be announcing changes to user experience in the spring.”