“That time of year” has arrived once again.
Most readers will only have one BPS claim to submit for the year, if any. We, by our nature, have rather more than that. For some weeks we hear the DEFRA hold music in our sleep and dream about RLE1 forms. Whatever the long-term psychological effects of this may be, however, this does make us well placed to share some pointers about how to survive this spring activity.
- Be certain with the mapping
It is much easier to tell the RPA in advance about any changes that have happened on your holding before they start trying to process your claim. If you tell them there is a discrepancy, there is a reasonable chance they will sort it out correctly. If they are the first to notice it, they may then decide the field you have just put into grass is now a commercial airstrip or such like and then try to penalise you for claiming on it.
- Greening no longer exists
Neither Ecological Focus Areas nor the Three Crop Rule are applied anymore. Anything else you read about them can be disregarded. The Greening Rule about returning land to permanent pasture also no longer exists, but that does not mean that you can go ahead and plough up all of your grassland. This is still protected under Environmental Impact Assessment regulations.
- Most new entrants must now purchase entitlements
Up to last year, “New” and “Young” farmers could claim fresh BPS Entitlements for free from the Government. This option has now been removed, except where the new entrant purchased or leased in their land before the 17th May last year but have not yet claimed the BPS on it. Therefore entitlements will need to be purchased on the open market instead for most new entrants. The RPA’s stated reason for this is to prevent what they consider might be abuse of the retirement lump sum. Given the purpose of the retirement lump sum was ostensibly to encourage new entrants, the Government rather seems to have “cut off its nose to spite its face” here.
- Save everything
It is, unfortunately, quite possible to do everything perfectly and then still have the RPA make some error for which they then attempt to hold you responsible. Most of the time this can be handled perfectly well by calmly pointing out that no, you have not tried to claim on the entire Lizard Peninsula and here is the form you submitted to prove it. However, this only works if you saved a copy of the form in question. Documents on the DEFRA website get wiped permanently if you generate a new version. Therefore, if you generate a new form and didn’t save the old one, and some official has accidentally added several thousand acres of someone else’s land to your claim in between, it will be difficult to prove that this is not what was submitted. This is only a slight exaggeration: one of our clients recently had an additional 50ha of land from some four counties away added to their claim for no clear reason. That we had evidence to hand of the claim we actually submitted was vital in correcting this mistake.
- Don’t Panic
If a problem does arise, and you have followed the rules and have documents on file, this is often easier to fix than you may think. Even if you have made an error on your form, the RPA makes provision for “obvious errors” which can be resolved without penalty. If you notice a serious error after submission, provided the RPA do not spot it first, you can let them know without penalty under their “notified error” provisions. However, it is unwise to rely on these provisions. There are no strict rules as to when an error is “obvious” and sometimes the RPA will notice it first. The second-best way to ensure smooth payment of your BPS from the outset is to study all of the rules carefully and follow them to the letter.
The best way, we are afraid, is to pay someone to submit it who can remember them all in their sleep!
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