BPS Update January 20, 2015 12:00 am Online Applications There is increasing industry concern about the online application process in England. Timetables are slipping which is making the window for making a claim ever-smaller for farmers and their advisors. There also seems to have been a name change with CAPIS no longer being used and ‘Rural Payments’ being the new term. The initial registration process for Rural Payments via the telephone route 03000 200 301 (see earlier article) actually seems to be working quite well. However, as more people decide to register the waiting time may become longer. Oddly, there is a reported problem in sending the confirmatory e-mails to ‘btconnect’ addresses. The system is also case-sensitive on e-mails. Once claimants and agents are registered there is currently very little that can be done. It is possible for claimants to check their personal and business details and give agents permissions. But we had been led to believe by now it would have been possible to confirm land use – i.e. arable, permanent pasture etc and also to mark on features. The original plan was to have a ‘version 2’ of the system launched in February with lots of additional functionality. However, instead of such a ‘big-bang’ extra features will be added from February to April in a series of small upgrades. This will make it hard work for agents trying to assist many clients as claims will not be able to be completed at one go – but may have to be done in a number of stages. The timetable as best we currently understand it is as follows. This is, of course, subject to further possible delays; February – amend business details; change field parcels; input land data; map (EFA) features* March – check entitlement information; entitlement transfers; Active Farmer information; National Reserve claims; Young Farmers Supplement April – the claim – bringing all the elements above together * whilst there will be an EFA calculator on the Rural Payments system, there will be no Crop DIversification check – this will have to be done manually The Basic Payment Scheme Handbook is due to be online from 14th February and will be posted out to all claimants from 23rd of the month. This will contain the scheme rules, but will not include guidance on how to claim, this will only be available online. The Handbook is expected to be last paper guidance being released, unless there is a requirement due to updates or corrections. Active Farmer Last month saw the fundamental change announced that anyone who has 36 Ha of eligible land will be deemed to be an active farmer. Note that this ‘readmission criteria’ only applies to England at present. Both Wales and Scotland have not formally adopted the option. It seems likely that Wales will follow suit shortly, but the threshold may well be different from 36 Ha. The situation in Scotland is less clear. Note that the use of this get-out will not be automatic in 2015. Those claimants that are on the negative list will have to indicate this on the Rural Payments system. They will then have to manually indicate on the system that they are claiming 36 or more hectares to get themselves readmitted – the computer will not transfer across the information. Greening There are still one or two unanswered questions on the detail of Greening. There is no further definitive guidance, but we do have some indications of how things will work in a couple of unknown areas. There has been an outstanding query on existing field margins / buffer strips. These are margins that are not under an agri-environment scheme as set out in SPS 2013 Guidance (page 36) – those retain their arable status even if they have been in place for 5+ years and have had grass on them. But other margins have been put in place for other reasons, or just kept on after an agri-environmental scheme finished. Obviously they have almost all been coded as per the main crop (arable) in the last few years, but in practical terms they may fit the definition of Permanent Grassland. This would have big implications for EFA in particular. It now seems highly unlikely that the RPA will go back, unpick the previous whole-field coding, and define these strips as Permanent Grassland. There may be an option for claimants to choose to re-classify these strips as PG if they choose to do so – in some cases it may help people get below certain Greening thresholds. Another issue is what happens under Crop Diversification if the cropping changes during the Cropping Period. It seems most likely that it will be the crop in place on the 15th May that is counted. This should be the working assumption when doing calculations, until we hear otherwise.
