Paper BPS Update

The move back to paper BPS applications in England has inevitably thrown up some questions around the process.  This article aims to answer some of these, and highlight the areas where more information is still required.

Firstly, although claims are to be on the new paper BPS form, all claimants (and Agents) must still be registered on the RPA’s Rural Payments system to be able to apply for the Basic Payment.  The facility to register new claimants and Agents on to the online service is now available.  You must contact the RPA helpline first on 03000 200 301 and then it will be possible to complete the registration on the Rural Payments system.  Also ‘permissions’ (previously empowerments) need to be set up correctly on the online Rural Payments system.  Agents should ensure they have the correct ones.  For example, those wishing to submit RLE1s to transfer entitlements will need to have the ‘Amend’ level under the ‘Entitlements’ heading.

Where entitlements are being transferred, both the transferor and transferee must be set up on Rural Payments.  It is a condition of the BPS that any party transferring-in entitlements must be an Active Farmer.  The RPA are looking at how to deal with this requirement now that the Active Farmer declaration may not be received until the 15^th June.  It may be that processing of RLE1s does not commence until then.

All those registered on the Rural Payments system will receive a pre-populated BP5 form.  These will start to be sent out from the beginning of April.  But it seems unlikely that many will be received before Easter.  Note that the forms will be sent by e-mail, not posted.  It is not yet clear to which e-mail this will be sent to.  It appears that where an Agent is linked to a business they may receive the e-mail, otherwise it seems it will go to the business e-mail address.  It is now possible to update business details on the online system.  It may therefore be worthwhile re-checking this information and making sure e-mail addresses are correct for businesses. 

Although blank BP5 forms are available the RPA would prefer claimants if possible to wait for their pre-populated one, there are less risks of errors creeping into an application with pre-populated ones and it makes entering the information easier.  In reality it will probably depend on the length of the claim and how long the pre-populated forms take to arrive.  There will also be continuation booklets for Parts C, D and E; these should be made available online.  Barcodes are not required, but claimants need to put their SBI number on every page of all correspondence.

Even the ‘fast track’ claims will receive a pre-populated form.  These will be claimants that have not made any changes over the last couple of applications and are not expected to have to undertake any Greening; in the main they will be the simplest grassland claims.  This group will be able to give a ‘green tick’ to say there will be no change and confirm they are an Active Farmer and e-mail their application back.  If they have any changes they will fall back into the mainstream application process and will have to complete a paper application form.  It appears it may be quite easy for claimants to ‘tick no change’ and reply without really considering if they have given up some land or taken some on, or put in new cow tracks, new buildings, etc. so beware. 

Field details on the pre-populated forms will not be in the same order as on the previous SP5 forms, neither willthey be grouped under CPH numbers, which will make cross checking with last year’s form difficult.  It appears in situations where you take on a new field, or have to delete a field and put it at the end of the form and you require it to be under a certain CPH number (perhaps for livestock movements) you will have to write an accompanying letter.

Further guidance is expected on the completion of column C4 of theField Data Sheets.  Under the SPS, permanently ineligible features (pifs) were taken off to arrive at the figure in this column.  The claimable area (C8) was then reduced for temporary ineligible features (tifs).  But this year C4 is ‘total field size with all BPS ineligible features removed’ (pifs and tifs) as this column will be used to calculate the eligible area to be matched against the number of entitlements held (with any excess being confiscated in 2015).  The query is whether claimants will have to map tifs?  In practice there aren’t that many tifs – muck heaps in the same place for more than 3 years, hay, straw, silage not stored in the field it was harvested from, pipeline works, but it would create added work if they have to be mapped and an RLE1 submitted.

SITI Agri, the underlying computer system, will still be used by the RPA.  There has never been a problem with this, but it is not very user-friendly which is why it was decided to build a more intuitive interface for claimants (which hasn’t worked).  The RPA had indicated that there might be some situations where Agents with many applications or large and complex claims could have been given access to the SITI system.  It appears this will be very limited and by invitation only; the vast majority of Agents will not be able to use this process and it would be best to assume paper applications for all clients.

Even though DEFRA has taken up the option to extend the submission deadline until 15^th June, claimants are urged to get their forms in as soon as possible – the later forms are submitted the later the validation process starts which, in turn, will have a knock-on effect on when payments will be made.  It is unclear whether the late submission procedure/penalties will also be extended.  The RPA are waiting for the legislation before confirming this, so in the mean time work on 15^th June as being the absolute deadline.  As stated in previous articles there will be 50 Drop-in Centres around the country, the actual addresses have not been released yet, but Agents with multiple applications to deliver are encouraged to book an appointment.  For those posting applications back note that the RPA has changed from a Sheffield to a Worksop correspondence address.  This same address is also used for RLE1 forms.

As we have written previously the date that land must be at your disposal remains 15^th May.  The cropping period remains 1^st May to 30^th June.  For entitlement transfer claimants should work to 15^th May deadline although there is lobbying to try and get this extended.  Changes to land can be made up until 15^th June deadline – note it is still possible to add and delete fields on the BP5 form as was the case under SPS. 

The RPA is expected to be e-mailing all those registered on the Rural Payments system shortly, to update and reassure them of the claiming process.  Which will make us all feel better.