BP5 Form Published

Following the announcement that 2015 Basic Payment applications would be made on paper the RPA has published the blank BP5 form along with guidance (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/how-to-apply-for-the-basic-payment-scheme-in-2015). We have had a number of questions of the past couple of days so will attempt to provide some guidance and pointers of our own.

• E-mails for those who do not need to complete a BP5 form should go out in April (see previous article)
• Pre-populated form will also go out in April, this should contain details that have been saved on the Rural Payments Service.  It appears that this will be sent by e-mail rather than post.   

For those completing a BP5 form there are a number points to note/clarify;

• RLE1 forms should be used for entitlement transfers and land changes – permanent boundary change, merging/splitting fields, registering new land not on the RLR, adding BPS ineligible features.
• Farmers and agents must still be registered on the Rural Payments System. 
• As with previous forms, black ink must be used and any amendments signed and dated. 

BP5 Form

Part A and B detail the business and payment, if business details are incorrect the RPA should be contacted. Only put a cross in the box if you wish to receive payment in Euros.

Part C: Field Data Sheet, this is similar to those seen in SP5 forms.  Field names will not be pre-populated but can be entered if you wish.  Fields may also not appear in the same order as the SP5 forms, so if using the previous form for cross checking be careful.  Check the correct field size and ensure maximum eligible area is correct.  Note that there have been some changes to what is eligible under BPS (e.g. grazed woodland).  For any additional ineligible features an RLE1 should be submitted.  Column C5 should be used to identify part fields using the suffix A, B, C etc.  Land parcels with more than one crop will need to be separated in this way so correct land use codes can be entered.  Buffer strips used for EFA should also be split in this way also. To allow for Crop Diversification the crop codes used in 2014 are not valid, a full list of codes is available online.

We have had a number of questions regarding the mapping of these part fields, the Rural Payments System required all different land uses to be mapped. The BP5 states that sketch maps are not required.   

Part D: Greening EFAs. This is probably the most complex bit of the form.  It only needs to be completed if a farmer needs EFA’s – i.e. having more than 15 hectares and none of the exemptions apply.  Those wanting to use the organic exemption must compete Part K. Only fields that have EFA’s situated in them need to be included.  All data entered should be the physical size of the feature, not adjusted for weighting factors etc.  Again a map is not required for EFA features.  It should be remembered that if an EFA hedge is situated next to fallow land, nitrogen fixing crops or catch/cover crops being used for EFA the area claimed for EFA for the fallow, NFC or catch/cover crop must be reduced by 2.5m x the length of the hedge.

Where a hedge is being used for EFA, it is probably easier to use an illustration to explain how to enter measurements.

For Field A, 100m of hedges should be entered into column D5 – hedges in arable land parcel.  D6 should be left empty.  For Field B, the farmer has responsibility for management of the hedge next to the road, i.e. both sides of the hedge can be counted. 265m should be entered into column D5 (180m+85m).  165m should be entered into column D6 – adjacent hedges (85m+80m adjacent to the road).

Part F: Active Farmer.  Applicants must declare if they qualify as an Active Farmer (i.e. do not fall into one of the five negative list categories).  If the ‘No’ box is ticked then the readmission criteria needs to be completed.  Parts G to J are relatively straightforward, applicants wanting to apply for the Young Farmer Payment or claim entitlements through the National Reserve need to indicate this on the Form.  Details of entitlements and cross border farms also must be entered.

As with the SP5 form the BP5 contains a declaration and responsibilities which must be signed, the whole form must then be submitted with any other documents as required and submitted to the RPA via post (Rural Payments Agency, PO Box 352, Worksop, S80 9FG) or hand delivered to one of the 50 Drop in Centres.  Without knowing which clients are going to be in the 39,000 who will not have to submit a form it remains difficult for Agents to plan their time, is it worth starting to fill in blank forms or wait for prepopulated ones to start coming out?  Everyone situation will be different.  It does seem sensible to continue to collect data from clients on cropping and EFA whether you choose to start completing forms now or wait it out.