Published on: Monday August 11, 2025

WGGB General Secretary Ellie Peers has today (11 August 2025) written to Darren Henley, Chief Executive of Arts Council England, over the crash of the ACE application portal Grantium, and the impact it is having on playwrights and other writers. You can read the full text of the letter below and find out more about the issue and read updates on the Arts Council website here

Letter to Darren Henley, Chief Executive of Arts Council England

Dear Darren,

I am writing to you on behalf of WGGB members (playwrights and other writers) who have contacted the union following the recent Grantium crash.

The IT crash has already created huge problems throughout the small-scale and freelance sector of the theatre industry, among companies and individuals who are dependent on National Lottery Project Grants funding, particularly for projects which are time sensitive. These problems have been exacerbated by the extension of the closure of the portal to mid-September.

Playwrights are affected as individuals who are applying for DYCP (Developing Your Creative Practice) grants, particularly when involving courses, placements, residencies, workshops etc which are time sensitive.

But in addition, many playwrights are applying for projects, where they have a dual role as writer and producer. Again, the closure of the portal is particularly taxing for playwrights applying for projects with an existing timeline, in which workshops and indeed rehearsals and performances are planned, venues booked, personnel committed, and matching funding raised and provisionally allocated. Some of these projects are pencilled in for performances and the delay may well lead to their losing their programming.

We appreciate that this is a technical problem with a system that has posed long-standing problems and frustrations for users.  However, there are several specific things which the Arts Council could do to alleviate some of the difficulties – and allay some of the fears – which the Grantium crash has created, particularly for companies and individuals who were in the process of completing or even uploading applications when the system crashed.

1) After the crash, the Grantium website reassured people who were working on applications (often for days and weeks) that their drafts would be accessible once the system is up and running again. However, that reassurance was removed from the website, and members were told by ACE that that assurance could not in fact be given. By the afternoon of 7 August 2025, a new paragraph had been added saying that “by early September, we’ll provide details on how applicants can gain access to applications held on our system”. Is this a guarantee that draft applications are safe and that those who wrote them will be given access to them? If it is, then we feel it should be stated as such.

2) We note that you are building a new application route from September. Will it be possible for people who had completed or nearly completed applications but not submitted them to be able to submit applications in that form, or will they have to start again from scratch?

3) Many applications are for projects which already have a timeline to which other bodies and individuals are now committed. In some cases, applicants will be able to revise their timelines: will they be required to rewrite their applications entirely to fit with the new circumstances which are beyond their control?

4) Where there is an existing timeline which is hard to alter, companies may choose to spend matching funding to implement early stages of their project (for instance, community workshops or other forms of development). Normally, ACE does not take activities before the beginning of the officially funded project period to be accountable as matching funding or considered as part of the project. Can you waive that ruling so that activity which needs to take place before you are able to respond to applications can be part of the application?

5) Overall, on time-sensitive applications: will ACE be able to fast-track new applications whose schedules would have worked had Grantium been functioning but will now be delayed?

6) You have suspended NLPG applications for sums over £30,000. We have members developing ambitious projects which may already be in the development process or pencilled in by theatres. Please can you tell applicants when the £30,000+ NLPG applications will be reintroduced, so they can discuss the consequences with potential partners?

7) You have an excellent system to pay for support workers to assist neurodivergent applicants to fill in applications, to apply for that support takes 10 days. This scheme has been suspended which means that neurodivergent artists (including writers) cannot work on applications in the interim and will be delayed by a further 10 days when the portal reopens. Please can you reconsider the decision to suspend this scheme?

We appreciate that IT crashes happen, but there is real concern amongst the writing community about the amount of time that it is taking to rectify the issues, and as illustrated above, we do think there are many things that ACE can and should do in the interim to minimise the detriment to funding applicants, and new writing in theatre.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Kindest regards,

Ellie Peers

General Secretary

Writers’ Guild of Great Britain

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