Applying for the 2028–2033 National Portfolio: What’s changed and how to prepare your NPO application
Earlier this week, Arts Council England (ACE) issued its eagerly awaited Applicant Guidance on how to prepare for the upcoming National Portfolio Organisation (NPO) funding round, covering the period from 2028-2033. In addition to the guidance, ACE issued an offline application form, meaning prospective NPO applicants can start preparing and drafting applications now, ahead of the electronic application portal and application window officially opening.
We previously posted guidance on how prospective NPOs can prepare for the upcoming funding round, including how Souter Point can assist with an ‘application readiness review’. We have now expanded the services we offer to support prospective NPOs in structuring their funding applications, completing the application form and providing an independent review of content already drafted.
While some areas of this NPO application process will be familiar to those who have been through it before, many fundamental differences mean you cannot simply dust off a previous NPO application and rewrite it.
Here’s an overview of what’s changed, followed by how we recommend prospective NPOs prepare for the application window opening and how Souter Point can support you through this process.
NPO 2028-2033 – What’s changed?
Here are the key differences between the previous NPO application round covering the 2023-2026 period and the upcoming 2028-2033 period.
Investment period:
2023–2026: Applicants sought three years of investment. The existing portfolio has subsequently been extended.
2028–2033: Applicants seek five years of investment, from April 2028 to March 2033.
Application structure:
2023–2026: Applicants described their contribution to Let’s Create Outcomes and submitted separate Activity, Investment Principles and financial information templates, alongside financial statements.
2028–2033: The published form asks directly about previous work, proposed contribution, governance, geographic reach and finances. It includes conditional questions where relevant.
Assessment:
2023–2026: The published criteria covered access and excellence, Outcomes, and Investment Principles, with a separate risk assessment.
2028–2033: Four published criteria cover previous work and development, proposed work and contribution, governance and management, and financial viability. Excellence remains fundamental.
Place:
2023–2026: Geographic spread, areas of lower investment and engagement, and Arts Council Priority Places informed portfolio balancing.
2028–2033: Portfolio building expressly considers delivery in places with lower investment, opportunity or engagement, particularly Culture Priority Places, and opportunities for children and young people there.
Decision inputs:
2023–2026: Assessment was followed by a balancing process.
2028–2033: Three Arts Council staff assess each eligible application. Community research, Mayoral Strategic Authorities and pilot Regional Boards will also inform portfolio decisions.
Funding request:
2023–2026: The minimum for new applicants was £50,000 per year; existing organisations received planning figures.
2028–2033: The minimum remains £50,000 per year. The core annual request must be the same across all five years; current funded organisations may make a separate case for additional investment.
Different questions, updated emphasis
The questions themselves have also changed, with a simplified set of responses required and fewer characters/words. There is also no requirement to submit detailed attachments, such as an activity plan; however, organisations that pass the first round of screening will likely need an activity plan to finalise the application process.
Here is how the questions differ between the previous 2023-2026 NPO funding round and the new 2028-2033 period.
Organisation and purpose:
2023–2026: Applicants described the organisation or consortium, including its mission or purpose, within 2,000 characters. Arts Council England considered whether its principal purpose was cultural and whether collaboration was core to its work.
2028–2033: The new form retains an introductory organisation/purpose section, principally to establish what the organisation does, its purpose and who it works with or for.
Change: Simplified. Treat this primarily as orientation for assessors. Avoid spending scarce space on promotional language; quickly establish the organisation's proposition and operating context.
Previous work/track record:
2023–2026: A major 7,000-character response covered both access and excellence, audiences, organisational quality and representativeness. Access incorporated the public, workforce, leadership and governance.
2028–2033: The new form retains an introductory organisation/purpose section, principally to establish what the organisation does, its purpose and who it works with or for.
Change: Major reframing. The response should not simply be a catalogue of achievements. Evidence of an organisational learning cycle — evidence → insight → change → improved result — is now explicitly valuable.
Excellence:
2023–2026: Excellence was assessed alongside access and through proposed Outcomes and Ambition and Quality within the Investment Principles.
2028–2033: Excellence is now described as a fundamental requirement alongside the four assessment criteria. Arts Council England defines it broadly through quality and distinctiveness of work, people's experience, contribution, wider cultural practice and learning/development.
Change: Increased prominence. A technically credible application that does not establish excellence may effectively fail before portfolio considerations become decisive. The evidence strategy should therefore establish excellence explicitly rather than assuming reputation will speak for itself.
Strategic Outcomes:
2023–2026: Applicants selected one or more of Creative People, Cultural Communities and A Creative & Cultural Country and indicated the percentage of activity attributable to each. Applicants seeking more than £1 million annually were advised that they were unlikely to succeed without supporting all three.
2028–2033: Those questions have disappeared. The programme is instead shaped by the Strategic Framework objectives Support excellence, Deliver for everybody and Reach everywhere, together with two portfolio priorities.
Change: Do not recycle the old Outcomes architecture. Organise a 2028–2033 response around the actual questions and proposition, rather than creating three artificial subsections corresponding to the former Outcomes.
Overall future proposal:
2023–2026: Applicants had up to 10,000 characters to explain their three-year contribution to Let's Create and its Outcomes. This was assessed alongside a detailed Activity Plan.
2028–2033: Assessment now asks whether there is a strong, credible five-year proposal; whether it will create meaningful benefits for people, communities, practitioners and/or organisations; and whether National Portfolio investment will support the organisation's development.
Change: Greater emphasis on proposition and causality. The strongest answer should connect funding → activity/capability → beneficiaries → benefits → organisational development, rather than provide a programme inventory.
Detailed Activity Plan:
2023–2026: A separate Activity Plan for the first year was required, with up to ten activities, locations, delivery information, targets and measures. Outcome contribution was formally rated.
2028–2033: The published Applicant Guidance includes no equivalent application-stage Activity Plan. Arts Council England states that activity plans and targets will instead be agreed during funding-agreement negotiation following a conditional offer.
Change: Material simplification. Applicants should nevertheless have a detailed internal delivery model behind the application so that five-year claims are demonstrably costed and deliverable. Do not overload the submitted narrative with operational minutiae that Arts Council England has deliberately removed.
Investment Principles Plan:
2023–2026: Applicants submitted a separate plan covering Inclusivity and Relevance, Environmental Responsibility, Dynamism, and Ambition and Quality, which was separately assessed.
2028–2033: No standalone Investment Principles Plan or standalone Investment Principles assessment criterion appears in the 2028–2033 Applicant Guidance.
Change: Major removal from the application architecture. Relevant practices — inclusion, environmental responsibility, organisational adaptability and quality — remain useful evidence where they establish excellence, credibility or responsible management, but they should not be recreated as four separate application sections.
Beneficiaries and communities:
2023–2026: Evidence was spread across the access question, Outcomes, Activity Plan and balancing criteria.
2028–2033: The new application form includes dedicated Beneficiaries and Communities and geographic and place-related sections, while the scored proposal criterion explicitly asks about meaningful benefits. Arts Council England's broader definition of excellence also considers the experience of those engaging with or benefiting from the work.
Change: More explicit beneficiary logic. Applications should be precise about who benefits, why the work matters to them, what changes as a result and what evidence demonstrates this.
Geographic reach:
2023–2026: Geography was captured through delivery plans and subsequently used in balancing, including Priority Places, historically low investment or engagement and urban/rural spread.
2028–2033: Geographic Reach, local authority and Culture Priority Places are now explicit elements of the application architecture. Portfolio building specifically prioritises places with historically lower investment, opportunity or engagement, particularly Culture Priority Places.
Change: Place becomes more visible and more strategic. An applicant should evidence actual reach and local need, not merely list postcodes or claim national relevance.
Children and young people:
2023–2026: Relevant to the old Outcomes and individual activity proposals but not a distinct headline balancing priority of this kind.
2028–2033: Arts Council England specifically wants the portfolio to increase opportunities for children and young people in historically lower-investment and lower-opportunity places, particularly Culture Priority Places.
Change: New portfolio emphasis. Organisations with a credible contribution should make it tangible and measurable. Organisations without such a role should not manufacture one: Arts Council England expressly states that individual organisations may contribute strongly to both priorities, one or neither.
Governance and management:
2023–2026: Applicants provided extensive governance information; governance and management were separately risk-assessed, and Investment Principles were also relevant.
2028–2033: Governance and management is one of the four principal assessment criteria. Assessors seek confidence that the organisation is effectively governed and led and understands and manages its key risks and challenges. All funded organisations must have appropriate independent governance or oversight from 1 April 2028, normally including an independent majority and a non-executive chair or co-chairs.
Change: Sharper assurance test. Governance evidence should demonstrate challenge and control in practice, not merely describe committee structures. Applicants with unusual legal structures should address independent oversight particularly carefully.
Leadership and governance diversity:
2023–2026: Portfolio balancing considered disability, race, sex and lower socio-economic background, including the diverse-led test.
2028–2033: Portfolio building now expressly prioritises increased representation in leadership and governance, particularly Disabled people, Black, Asian and ethnically diverse people, and people from lower socio-economic backgrounds.
Change: Greater strategic visibility, but this is a portfolio consideration rather than an individual quality score. Demographic information must therefore be accurate and consistent; applicants should not imply that demographic characteristics alone determine assessment quality.
Financial viability:
2023–2026: Applicants attached financial statements and a separate financial-information template and supplied reserves, variance and risk information.
2028–2033: Financial viability is now one of the four core assessment criteria: Arts Council England asks whether the information provides confidence in both future financial planning and the organisation's current financial position.
Change: Less paperwork does not mean less scrutiny. The narrative and financial data must reconcile tightly. Financial assumptions, reserves, income diversification, cost inflation, and downside resilience should be stress-tested internally before submission.
Funding amount:
2023–2026: Minimum £50,000 annually. Applicants specified amounts for each of three years and could vary them, although broadly level funding was expected.
2028–2033: Minimum remains £50,000 annually, with no maximum, but applicants must request the same annual amount throughout all five years. Arts Council England may offer less than requested.
Change: Funding profile is materially more constrained. Five-year cost modelling must absorb inflation, pay pressures, and programme evolution within a flat nominal Arts Council England contribution unless other income grows.
Existing funded organisations/planning figure:
2023–2026: Current organisations applied using their planning figure and could seek additional investment, with extra funding linked strongly to balancing priorities.
2028–2033: The core application must be viable at or below the planning figure. Additional investment can be requested separately, but Arts Council England explicitly says it is unlikely to support most additional-funding requests.
Change: Base case first; upside second. No essential activity should depend on additional funding. An additional request should fund an incremental, separable proposition with a clear marginal benefit.
Capital funding:
2023–2026: No equivalent question in the old competitive application structure.
2028–2033: Organisations requesting £1 million or more annually will be asked whether part of the award could be provided as capital funding. The amount would need to be fixed annually and relate to recurring eligible capital expenditure rather than a major one-off project. Arts Council England states that the answer will not affect application assessment.
Change: New funding rule. Higher-value applicants should separate genuine capital expenditure from operating expenditure before completing the application.
Artificial intelligence:
2023–2026: The 2023–2026 guidance did not contain equivalent generative-artificial-intelligence provisions.
2028–2033: Applicants may use generative artificial intelligence when preparing applications but remain responsible for accuracy, quality and content. Arts Council England states that it will not use artificial intelligence to assess applications or make funding decisions, although technology may support administrative processing.
Change: New explicit rule. Any use of artificial intelligence should therefore be subject to factual verification and human approval.
Further information:
2023–2026: Arts Council England could consider information already held about existing funded organisations and request further material.
2028–2033: A formal Further Information Request may clarify contradictions, inconsistencies or factual uncertainty, normally with five working days to respond. It cannot cure an omission, add new material or strengthen the application.
Change: Completeness at submission is critical. Applicants should run a specific contradiction, dependency and evidence-completeness review before submission.
Introductory discussion and process:
2023–2026: New applicants were expected to have an introductory conversation with Arts Council England. The 2022 round opened on 14 February and closed on 26 April 2022.
2028–2033: The published 2028–2033 process instead sets out applicant resources, webinars and support and an application window from 20 October to 15 December 2026. The new guidance does not reproduce the former introductory-conversation stage.
Change: Shorter and more self-service application process. Organisations should not rely on pre-application dialogue to remedy uncertainty or weak positioning.
Post-award planning:
2023–2026: Much detailed planning was already supplied in the application.
2028–2033: Detailed activity plans, targets and arrangements are expressly deferred until July 2027–February 2028 funding-agreement negotiation.
Change: Application is more strategic; negotiation becomes more important. Applicants need enough underlying operational detail to negotiate confidently if successful.
Support at the stage you need it
At Souter Point, we can help you choose a proportionate route through your NPO application. You can commission our services individually or together, and while engaging us for multiple scopes of work offers inherent synergies, there are no dependencies between services.
Here’s how we can support you, including details on how to book an exploration call with us.
NPO Application Readiness Review
If you are still deciding whether and how to apply, we review five areas of your organisation and provide an independent assessment of how ‘ready’ you are to make a successful application.
The review covers eligibility and strategic fit; evidence of excellent previous work and development; the proposed work and its contribution; governance, management and financial viability; and application evidence.
We use a focused information request and questionnaire, check material claims against published ACE guidance, and give you a report with a prioritised action plan. The aim is a clear decision about what is ready, what needs work, and who should do it, using materials you already have or can create with limited effort for the readiness review.
NPO Application Planning
This service turns your application materials into a practical work plan.
If you have used the NPO Application Readiness Review, the outputs from that service form an integral part of the NPO Application Planning service.
The NPO Application Planning service involves agreeing the proposition, assigning question owners, mapping each answer to the published criteria, identifying evidence gaps and scheduling internal decisions.
We help bring together your programme, audience, place, partnership, governance and financial information so that the application tells one consistent story. The output is a blueprint for writing your NPO application, with a clear structure to follow and guidance on how to write your responses.
NPO Application Bid Writing
We can draft your full NPO application or work alongside your team on selected responses.
The starting point is your actual work and evidence: examples of excellence, learning over the last three years, realistic plans for 2028–33 and the benefit you expect to create. We then shape that material into clear answers within the application form’s character limits. Your leadership and board retain ownership of the claims and commitments.
NPO Application Bid Management
A strong narrative can still be undermined by late figures, conflicting versions or an unapproved funding request. With bid management services, we plan your NPO application production, coordinate your contributors, track evidence and decisions, manage the drafting timetable, check consistency between narrative and finance, and organise a final review before submission.
Bid management services are especially useful where several teams or consortium partners need to contribute, as it relieves your organisation of the burden of day-to-day bid management so that you can focus on your proposal and maximise its excellence.
NPO Application Independent Red Review
Once your NPO application has been drafted and internally reviewed, we can provide you with an independent ‘red review’ service to ensure it is as good as it can be.
We assess how directly each answer responds to the question and published criteria, whether the evidence supports its claims, where a reader may see a gap or contradiction, and which changes would make the greatest difference.
You receive structured, prioritised feedback your writers can act on, with both marked-up question responses and a 3-5 page summary for each question covering the response's strengths, opportunities for improvement, and the top actions needed to address them.
Book your exploration call today
We have limited spaces available to support prospective NPO applicants, so if you would like to discuss how we can help you through the NPO process, book an exploration call with us today.
Because each NPO application is unique in size, scale, and composition, we can talk through a best-practice approach for your organisation and provide a tailored quote for services based on your needs.
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