Do arts council emergency grants count as income for self-employed claimants?

I have a client who will be receiving a some money as an arts council emergency grant.

From the arts council website, these are for the following purposes:

“•  Activity and/or equipment that will help you to sustain your practice and support you in continuing with your work
•  Time to stabilise, think and plan for the future

This could include development to stabilise your practice and change the way you work. If stabilisation and planning activity like networking and mentoring activity can feasibly be delivered during this period, they can be included in applications. We can’t support output-focused proposals for project work, but there will be other opportunities to apply for this type of project as the emergency situation eases.”

It’s not clear to me that it would count as income in the same way in which an ordinary arts grant would, as it doesn’t seem targeted to a specific arts project, just at the artist’s financial survival through crisis. There are no specific rules I could find on the topic. Does anyone have any ideas on this?

Thank you!

I don’t know of any regulations or guidance but I’d say it would be treated as self-employed earnings for the assessed income period in which it is received, rather like an SEISS lump sum payment.