Annex B – RPA guidance for farmers

RPA guidance for farmers

1. In May 2004 the Minister responsible for the implementation of the SPS wrote to the Defra mailing list of 180,000 about SPS and the deadline for returning SPS claims. RPA produced a range of information booklets about SPS from July 2004 onwards, including a sample SPS claim form in February 2005. In February and March 2005 they ran 32 seminars for farmers, in 16 places around the country. About 8,500 people attended these seminars.

The SPS Handbook and Guidance for England 2005

2. The Single Payment Scheme Handbook and Guidance for England 2005 (the 2005 Handbook), printed in February 2005, set out RPA’s interpretation of SPS rules. The extracts here are those particularly relevant to the complaints about RPA’s handling of 2005 claims to SPS.

Establishing and activating

A Introduction, paragraph 2: ‘ … Farmers who are carrying out an agricultural activity can only apply to SPS in 2005 to establish entitlements for the eligible agricultural area on their holding …These entitlements can be activated in 2005, and then every year for as long as the scheme continues, to generate a support payment. … .

C What land can be claimed under SPS?, paragraphs 52 to 56: ‘… If your land is registered on the Rural Land Register you should use the details supplied on your maps to complete columns B and D of the Field Data Sheet [part of the SPS claim form] … Most farmers will have some, if not all, of the information on their land pre-populated on the SPS application form. This will not be the case for land that is not land which was digitised after the end of January and land that was submitted on an IACS 22 after September 2004 … If your land has not been pre‑populated, you will have to complete that part of the application form by hand … If the IACS 22 or new registration of land has not been completed then you must still enter the parcel on the application form if it is agricultural land … If you have land that you wish to include on your application form, but it has not been registered before, please fill out the details on the application form and complete an IACS 22 form …  

E Entitlement to payment, paragraph 66:‘Payment entitlements form the basis of the SPS. If you hold an entitlement you have the right (subject to certain conditions being met) to claim a payment under the scheme. There are two main types of entitlement, “normal” and “set-aside”. You must establish your right to an entitlement before you can activate it (claim payment against that entitlement). You may decide to establish your entitlements but not activate them, in which case you will not receive any payment against them in 2005, but you should be aware of the rules on use of entitlements set out below. Establishment of entitlements is a one-off exercise for 2005 only.    

E Entitlement to payment, paragraph 70: ‘You need to establish the number of entitlements you can hold in 2005, the first year of the scheme. You do this by completing the SPS application form … You can establish entitlements for land that is on your holding when you apply even if you cannot activate (make a claim upon) that entitlement for example because you will not have it for the whole of the ten month period you have chosen.    

E Entitlement to payment, paragraph 79: ‘Once you have established entitlements, they can then be activated for payment (claimed) in each year you apply under the SPS. For 2005, establishment and activation of entitlements will be undertaken at the same time on the same application form.’

Section O of the 2005 Handbook was about completing the claim form. Paragraphs 319 and 320 gave this information about column I (establishing entitlements) and column J (activating entitlements).

‘Column I – Area for which entitlements to be established
319. Enter the area of each parcel on which you wish to establish entitlements. Ensure that the area to be established is eligible for SPS. Areas of non-agricultural use such as ponds, metalled footpaths etc. must be deducted.

‘Column J – Area for which entitlements to be activated
320. Enter the area of each parcel on which you wish to activate entitlements. This land must be at your disposal for at least 10 consecutive months of the scheme year. You cannot activate entitlements on land where the entitlements have not been established.’

Entitlements subject to special conditions

3. Section G of the 2005 Handbook, ‘entitlements subject to special conditions’, was for farmers who did not fit the land-based criteria for payment of subsidy under SPS. Farmers could claim ‘special entitlements’ if their earlier entitlement to agricultural subsidy (which RPA used to calculate part of their entitlement under the new Scheme) had been based on having animals, without any land. They could be in a position of having no land in 2005 or a very small area of land. The 2005 Handbook explained that payment for normal entitlements depended on the farmer having enough eligible hectares at his or her disposal. With special entitlements, payment depended on the farmer meeting certain conditions about the number of livestock he or she had on his or her holding in the year of the claim. Some farmers with little or no land could be disadvantaged by the SPS €5,000 ceiling on the unit value of entitlements if they claimed only normal entitlements. Special entitlements gave farmers a way to avoid that. Here is the text under the heading Activating Special Entitlements for payment – paragraphs 163 to 166. 

   ‘163. RPA will establish a base level of activity for the reference period by calculating the 3-year average of the number of animals determined for payment under all of the schemes listed above, expressed in livestock unit equivalents (LUs). The following conversion factors will be used to make this calculation …

   ‘164. Where several payments were claimed on the same animal during the reference period, the LU figure used will be the average of those that would apply for each individual payment.

   ‘165. To activate all of your Special Entitlements for payment in 2005, you must maintain at least 50 per cent of the level of animal production that you had in the reference period, again expressed in LUs. If you are also claiming Normal Entitlements, the level of livestock production required to activate all of your Special Entitlements will reduce slightly as some of the production in the reference period will be attributed to that land. If, however, you do not reach the threshold to activate all of your Special Entitlements, you may still be able to activate a proportion of them.

   ‘Example A farmer has two Special Entitlements and a total LU requirement of 10 (i.e. his calculated average for 2000 - 2002 was 20 LU). If he maintains 4 LU or less, he would receive no payment on those entitlements. Between 5 and 9 LUs, he would be paid on one Special Entitlement. If he has 10 LU in 2005, he would be paid on both.

   ‘166. RPA will contact affected farmers directly to tell them the number of livestock units that they had in the reference period and to explain how the level of livestock production being maintained in 2005 will be verified.’

   (RPA said in their April 2005 Handbook supplement that RPA ‘would check the activity maintenance requirement on a date to be announced’.)

Authorised entitlements – fruit, vegetables and potatoes

4. The 2005 Handbook gave the following information about payments for fruit, vegetables and potatoes. 

   ‘170. Under the SPS, growers of certain horticultural crops and potatoes are now eligible for a direct payment provided they meet the terms and conditions of the new scheme.

   Authorised Entitlements
   ‘171. Entitlements can be established on eligible land growing fruit, vegetables and potatoes (fvp) in the same way as other eligible land. However, if you wish to use land that you are using to grow fvp (as specified below) to activate entitlements, then you will need to be in possession of "Authorised Entitlements”.

   ‘172. Authorised Entitlements are exactly the same as normal payment entitlements except that they allow you to use your entitlement to claim against eligible land on which you are growing fvp. Authorisations provide the opportunity to produce fvp and still receive the Single Payment. However an Authorised Entitlement can also be activated for payment on eligible land growing other crops or simply being retained in GAEC. [Good agricultural and environmental condition, as delivered by EU regulations.]

   Applying for Authorised Entitlements
   ‘173. To apply for Authorised Entitlements you must apply to establish Normal Entitlements. The RPA can only allocate horticultural authorisations by attaching them to entitlements already established by the applicant.

   ‘174. If you wish to apply for authorisations, you must provide details of the parcels of land that you used to produce fvp in 2003 and 2004 and are using in 2005, in addition to the other general requirements of the application form. You must also declare that you were the person responsible for growing the crops. You may be asked to provide evidence such as production or sales records.

   Eligibility
   ‘175. If you were growing fvp during 2003 you will have first claim on authorisations available. You do not need to be growing any fvp crops in 2005. If your production was adversely affected by force majeure or exceptional circumstances in 2003, you can ask to be considered under special hardship provisions which take account of reduced production in that year.

   ‘176. Similarly, if in 2003 you were producing fvp in circumstances that would enable you to apply to the National Reserve, you may be eligible to receive additional authorisations. Details on applying for additional authorisations will be made available as soon as possible.

   ‘177. Authorisations and entitlements go hand-in-hand. You have to be able to establish entitlements in order to receive authorisations. It is not possible for two separate parties to do this and then join the two parts together. Once an Authorised Entitlement is issued the two parts cannot be split. You cannot claim a number of authorisations which exceeds either your highest annual production in the 2003-2005 period or the number of eligible hectares you declare in 2005. If you have reduced the area of land you farm since 2003 you will receive authorisations only on the land that you declare on your 2005 application form.’

The claim form

5. Section O was intended to take farmers through the process of completing the claim form.

   ‘This form allows you to apply for the Single Payment Scheme, Area Payment for Nuts, Aid for Energy Crops, Protein Crop premium and 2006 Hill Farm Allowance. It also covers application to the National Reserve. These notes refer to the application form for England which is in 4 parts:
   ‘SP5a –“Application for the Single Payment 2005…” This asks for general information about you as an applicant, the land you farm and the payments you wish to claim in 2005.
   ‘Annex 5b – “Field Data Sheet: English Area Summary”. This asks for information on individual fields and the entitlements you wish to establish.
   ‘Annex 5c – “Field Data Sheet: Common Land”. This should be completed if you wish to establish and/or activate entitlements on common land.
   ‘Annex 5d – “Application for Horticultural Authorisations – Land Information”. This should be completed if you are applying for horticultural authorisations or hardship relating to horticultural production.’

6. In the same section, O, the guidance explained that:
   • sections B and C of the SP5a section asked claimants to cross yes/no to confirm whether or not they wanted, respectively, to establish and to activate their entitlements for the land they had listed;
   • column I of Annex 5b of the claim form was for claimants to record the area of each parcel of land for which they wanted to establish an entitlement; and
   • column J in the annex was for claimants to record the area for which they wanted to activate an entitlement. (The area in column J could be smaller than the area in column I.)

Reductions and exclusions

7. See also paragraph B2, which gives the information for establishing and activating entitlements that was included in paragraph 320 of section O on the claim form. It said: 

   ‘Enter the area of each parcel on which you wish to activate entitlements. This land must be at your disposal for at least 10 consecutive months of the scheme year. You cannot activate entitlements on land where the entitlements have not been established.’

8. The Handbook also gave farmers information on how RPA would treat mistakes. The following extracts come from section Q Reductions, exclusions and correction of error.

   ‘Mistakes in applications which can be classified as an obvious error according to EC Regulations, and where the RPA is convinced that the farmer acted in good faith and there is no risk of fraud, can be corrected without reduction at any time. The following types of error may be considered as obvious errors, but each case will be considered on its own merit:‘i) Errors of a purely clerical nature, which are obvious during a simple examination of the application, i.e. boxes not filled in or information lacking, incorrect statistical information.
   ‘ii) Errors detected as a result of a contradiction appearing during a more in-depth examination (manual or computerised) of the application, which compares information (including supporting documentation, such as a map) submitted in the same application, i.e. arithmetical mistakes; inconsistencies between the information provided on the same application (for example, a parcel declared twice in a single claim); parcels declared for two types of usage (for example, set‑aside and protein crops).
   ‘iii) Anomalies involving parcel numbers or reference which are detected during the cross-check of the application with databases such as the parcel identification system, i.e.: figures reversed (parcel no.1169 instead of 1196); mistakes in the maintenance assessment p reference number; number of a neighbouring parcel given, resulting from a map reading error.’

   Under the heading ‘Force majeure and exceptional circumstances’ the 2005 Handbook said:

   ‘In limited circumstances it may be accepted that you are prevented from fulfilling certain of your obligations due to a course of events amount to either force majeure or exceptional circumstances. Where this is recognised to be the case, reductions normally associated with such failure may not have to be applied. Force majeure is defined as “unusual circumstances, outside your control, the consequences of which, in spite of all due care could not be avoided except at the costs of excessive sacrifice on your part”. Examples of force majeure and exceptional circumstances which may be recognised include: the death of the farmer; long term professional incapacity of the farmer; a severe natural disaster affecting the holding's agricultural land… If you wish consideration to be given to an event which you think amounts to force majeure or exceptional circumstances you must notify the RPA in writing within 10 working days of your being in a position to do so …. You can make amendments to your application to add agricultural parcels…and you can amend your application to show changes regarding the use and the aid scheme in respect of individual parcels already included in your application up to and including 31 May [unless the RPA had already notified the claimant of an error or of an inspection which then revealed errors].’     

   Under the heading ‘Notified error’ the 2005 Handbook said:

   ‘The regulations also allow corrections to be made to the application at any time provided you notify RPA in writing before you have been notified of the error in your application or notified of an inspection which subsequently reveals errors.

   ‘Late applications can only be submitted up to 25 days late – after this they will be inadmissible and not entitlement for SPS will be established. No payments will be made. Except in cases of force majeure and exceptional circumstances, submission of applications after the 16 May deadline will lead to a reduction of 4 per cent per working day in the amount you would have received base don the entitlements you activate that year … If your application arrives after the 10 June 2005 no payment entitlements will be allocated to you and you will receive no payment under the SPS.’     

The April 2005 supplement

9. On 12 April 2005 RPA announced it was sending out an 18‑page Handbook supplement. The supplement included a section called ‘Common Errors on Application Forms’. Under the category ‘incomplete forms’ it said: ‘It is vital that forms are complete. In particular Column 2 on Establishment and Column J on Activation of the Field Data Sheets must be fully completed for you to receive payment’.

The 2005 claim form – declaration

10. The claim form itself contained a declaration to be signed by the farmer.

    ‘Part 5 Declarations and Undertakings (Please see section O of the guidance)
    I confirm that I am a farmer within the meaning of Article 2(a) of Council Regulation (EC) 1782/03, as set out in section B of the guidance.
    I am aware of the conditions pertaining to this, my application, and have complied with them.‘I have complied with the current versions of Council Regulation (EC) 1782/2003, and with the Commission Regulations implementing the Regulations, including (EC) 795/04, (EC) 796/04, (EC)1655/04 and any other application legislation, and if I am applying for HFA [Hill Farm Allowance], I will comply with the relevant parts of Council Regulation 1257/99.’ 

    In 2006 this continued ‘and 1698/2005’.

    ‘  I have read and understood all of the relevant guidance notes including, if it applies to my claim, the HFA explanatory booklet for 2006. ‘I have given details that are true, accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief on this form, Field Data Sheet(s), Common Land Data Sheet(s), Horticultural Land Data Sheet(s) and any continuation sheet(s). I will advise the RPA of any material change to the information given in this form. ‘If claiming for Hill Farm Allowance I undertake to pursue my farming activity in a Less Favoured Area (as explained in the HFA explanatory booklet) for at least 5 years from the payment of compensatory allowance.’

    There was also a warning, in bold type, above the space for the farmer’s signature.

    ‘WARNING: Any person who makes a false declaration or fails to notify the RPA of a material change to the information given in the form is liable to prosecution. A false, inaccurate or incomplete statement or failure to notify the RPA of any material change to the information given in this form may result in loss of entitlement and/or recovery of any payments made.’

    The 2006 claim required a similar declaration by farmers.

The 2006 SPS claim form and SPS Handbook

11. The main practical difference between the 2006 SPS claim form and the 2005 form was that claimants had only to activate their entitlements – they had already established them in 2005. There were substantial changes in the approach that RPA took in the presentation of the 2006 forms. The 2006 sample claim form included clear signposting to claimants about what to do. For example, on the sample field data sheet where claimants would detail their land, column C10 had a prominent label saying: ‘You must complete the boxes in column 10 if you wish to claim SPS on a land parcel. If you do not complete the boxes in this column you will not be paid on this land parcel’. In 2006 they showed that they wanted to activate entitlements in two parts of the form: part C and part E.
12. In part C claimants recorded each land parcel. This part of the form was pre‑populated by RPA, if possible, and marked how much of each parcel they wanted to activate. There was also an area where they could provide the total areas they had activated, split by set‑aside, areas under fruit, vegetable and potato crops and the area of all other eligible land. The form said 

    ‘Totals for this sheet from Column C10: The areas that you enter in Column C10 of the field data sheet should be used to complete Part E of the application form. To help you do this, you can use the total boxes at the bottom of each sheet and summarise the results in the table provided. These totals do not form part of your application. We will rely on the information given for each land parcel.’

13. In Part E: Claim for Single Payment the form said

    ‘Use this section to tell us which of your Single Payment entitlements you wish to activate/claim payment on. For each line below either cross the box in column E6 to activate all of the entitlements relevant to that line, or complete the boxes to tell us the number of entitlements you wish to activate (claim payment on). If you have disposed of any entitlements that are still listed here, you must only activate up to the number that you still have available. If you have acquired entitlements that are not shown here, use the blank rows to add these to your claim.’

14. The 2006 Handbook, in the section about the claim form, listed some dos and don’ts for completing the form. Among other points, such as reminding claimants to use original forms, it said: ‘Do remember to complete column C10 to show that you want to activate entitlements against a particular parcel and/or D10 to activate common land’. It also said: ‘Don’t forget to complete column C10 to show you want to activate entitlements against a particular parcel’.

Mapping advice for 2006

15. The 2006 Handbook gave the following guidance on questions that might arise about the Rural Land Register when farmers completed their 2006 claims, under the heading ‘Registering land on the Rural Land Register’:  

    ‘C48. All the land forming part of your 2006 claim should be registered on the Rural Land Register (RLR). In addition, SPS rules require that all other agricultural land on your holding must be included in your application.

    ‘C49. Your application form will be preprinted with the field data shown on your RLR map. However, if at the time your form was preprinted, the validation of your 2005 form was not complete, some fields may not appear or may require amendment. If this is the case you still need to ensure that you include all the agricultural land on your holding accurately.

    ‘C50. If there have been changes to field boundaries since the map was produced, or you wish to include land on your application form that has not been registered before, you should complete form RLE1 in order for changes to be made. You should include a map of the land. RLE1 forms are available from the Customer Service Centre. A sample form and guidance are available on the website. The old IACS22 form will not be accepted.

    ‘C51. If you submit an RLE1 well in advance of the May deadline for SPS applications, you should receive confirmation of any new field numbers and areas in time to make corrections or additions on your application form by hand.

    ‘C52. If you do not have the new field numbers and sizes before the deadline for submitting your SPS application, you should still enter the field on the form if it is agricultural land. You should quote the field reference you have (as on the RLE1, if you have submitted one) and the size in hectares to two decimal places. If you have made allowance for ineligible features, these will be deducted to give a new total area for activating SPS entitlements for that field.

    ‘C53. If your RLE1 is still outstanding, do not resubmit it with your claim form but send a covering letter explaining clearly which fields are still outstanding. If you have not submitted an RLE1 to notify us of new land or changes, and do so with the SPS form, there must be an accompanying map for any new land. If you do not send a map, and we cannot therefore identify the field, it will be rejected for payment.’      

16. The 2006 Handbook also had a section called ‘Entitlement to payments’. Among other things, it said: ‘For each hectare of eligible land you declared on your 2005 SPS application form, you will have received an entitlement to claim payment under the SPS’. Under the sub‑heading ‘activating entitlements’, it said: 

    ‘The entitlements you hold can be activated for payment (claimed) in each year you apply under the SPS. Before you can activate all your entitlements, you must have at least an equal number of eligible hectares at your disposal for a period of at least 10 months.’

    Another part of the 2006 Handbook explained the 10‑month rule.

17. In 2005 and in 2006 the Handbooks gave details of how to complain.