The funder is considering rolling out changes to the application platform labelled “intolerable” and “useless” by some users.
Grantium, Arts Council England (ACE)’s beleaguered funding application platform, is reportedly on track to deliver predicted savings.
ACE told AP that switching over to Grantium from previous systems TopLevel and Arena had saved £700k in 2016/17, and would provide £1.2m savings in 2017/18. It added the funds have been “re-invested into arts and culture”.
This follows a prediction by ACE in January 2016, when the platform was launched, that it would save the funder around £1m a year.
But Grantium appears to remain challenging for applicants, with multiple users turning to Twitter to bemoan unexpected errors, and others calling it “intolerable” and the “worst thing to ever happen” to ACE.
Oh #Grantium - what a great moment to have an #unexpectederror! of course I want to type up all the finance narrative again...
— Annika Edge (@AnnikaEdge) September 20, 2017
Artist Dan Thompson suggested the savings were pushed on to applicants: “Grantium savings are supported by massive in-kind donation of artist time, as they support each other through applications.”
Grantium enquiries
Earlier this year ACE revealed it dealt with 2,478 customer service enquiries about Grantium between 1 January and 25 January 2017, but has recently told AP it is no longer able to quantify Grantium-related enquiries.
The Arts Council confirmed that all new funding programmes will be launched on Grantium by April 2018, and suggested changes could be in store for the system.
“We are currently considering further changes to Grantium, which are likely to be rolled out next year. As these have not been confirmed we cannot give you further detail at this point,” the spokesperson said.
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